Last week pitcher Naoyuki Uwasawa, formerly of the Hokkaido Nippon-Ham Fighters, signed a minor league deal with the Tampa Bay Rays. His signing was official right around the time his posting window was expiring so there was some speculation that he was going to go back to the Fighters.
Uwasawa was the Fighters' sixth round pick in the 2011 draft out of Senshu University Matsudo High School. He spent his first two professional seasons with the farm team in Kamagaya, Chiba prefecture which is not terribly far from where he grew up. He made his ichi-gun debut on April 4, 2014, starting against the Hawks in Fukuoka and picked up his first win, throwing six innings while only giving up three hits and one run. He became a part of the Fighters' starting rotation that season and pretty much remained there for ten years.
He injured his right elbow in the middle of the 2015 season and lost much of the following two seasons recovering. He bounced back and had one of his best seasons in 2018, going 11-6 with a 3.16 ERA. He was the Fighters' Opening Day starter in 2019 but missed about half of the season after taking a batted ball off his left knee.
He had perhaps his finest season in 2021, going 12-6 with an ERA of 2.81. His first win of the season came at the expense of Masahiro Tanaka of the Eagles on April 17th. Tanaka was making his first start in NPB since 2013 and Uwasawa and the Fighters ended his consecutive game winning streak at 28 (dating back to the 2012 season).
Uwasawa never led the Pacific League in any major categories although he did lead the league in innings pitched last year. He was named to the PL All Star team three times (2018, 2021 and 2023).
Uwasawa's first card was #017 in the 2012 BBM Rookie Edition set. His only other cards that year were both BBM issues - #053 in 1st Version and #F30 in the Fighters team set. His appearances in BBM's flagship sets have been kind of hit-or-miss - he was in both the 1st and 2nd Version sets in 2015, 2018, 2019, 2021, 2022 and 2023; only the 2nd Version set in 2014 and 2020 and neither set in 2013, 2016 and 2017. He has been in the annual Fighters team set every year between 2012 and 2023 however. His first Calbee card was a "Star" insert card (#S-60) in the 2014 Series Three set although his first base card was #021 in 2015 Series One. He's been in every edition of Epoch's NPB set (2018-23) and every edition of Topps' NPB set (2021-23). This is not meant to be a comprehensive list. Here's a sampling of what he has out there:
 |
| 2012 BBM 1st Version #017 |
 |
| 2012 BBM 1st Version #053 |
 |
| 2013 BBM Young Fighters #YF12 |
 |
| 2014 BBM 2nd Version #425 |
 |
| 2015 Calbee #021 |
 |
| 2016 BBM Fighters #F70 |
 |
| 2017 BBM Fighters #F35 |
 |
| 2018 BBM 2nd Version #446 |
 |
| 2019 Calbee #OP-03 |
 |
| 2020 Epoch NPB #148 |
 |
| 2021 Topps #86-NU |
 |
| 2022 Fighters Team Set #15 |
 |
| 2023 BBM 1st Version #138 |
2 comments:
I can see it now, he's going to routinely cut through the AL East lineups and then get pummeled by randos from the AL West.
I'm good with him beating up on the Yankees and Blue Jays, not so much the Red Sox or Orioles
Post a Comment