Japanese Baseball Cards: Tetsuya Utsumi

Friday, April 7, 2023

Tetsuya Utsumi

Another 2022 retiree was Tetsuya Utsumi, pitcher for the Yomiuri Giants and Saitama Seibu Lions. Utsumi was a first round pick of the Orix BlueWave in the 2000 draft but he refused to sign. His grandfather Iso Utsumi has played for the Giants in the late 1930's and young Tetsuya didn't want to sign with anyone other than Yomiuri. He spent the next three years playing with Tokyo Gas of the corporate leagues before agreeing to a deal with Yomiuri in the "free acquisition" portion of the 2003 draft. The Giants assigned him uniform number 26, the same number that his grandfather had worn.

He spent most of his first season on the farm but was up with the ichi-gun squad pretty much to stay in 2005. He was in the starting rotation in 2005 but briefly moved to middle relief to start 2006. He didn't stay working out of the bullpen for very long though as an injury to Hisanori Takahashi put him back in the rotation. He made his opportunity pay off, going 12-13 with a 2.78 ERA for the fourth place, sub-.500 Giants.

He continued to be a solid starter for the Giants, winning in double digits every season between 2007 and 2013 except 2009. His best season was probably 2011, when he had a record of 18-5 with an ERA of 1.70. He missed some time in 2014 and 2015 with shoulder and forearm injuries respectively and when he was healthy again he wasn't as effective as he had been before. His playing time diminished over the next several years before he was sent to the Lions as compensation for the Giants signing Ginjiro Sumitani as a free agent after the 2018 season.

A forearm injury limited him to the Lions' farm team in 2019 and he had surgery at the end of the season. He finally made his Lions ichi-gun debut in August of 2020 but he didn't pitch well, going 1-2 with an ERA of 4.26 in four starts. His 2021 numbers were worse - a 7,71 ERA in two starts (although he did manage to win one of those starts). The Lions made him a player-coach for 2022 and he got into five games with the top team, going 0-1 with an ERA of 3.00. He announced his retirement in August and is the pitching coach for the Lions ni-gun team this year.

Utsumi led the Central League in wins twice (2011 & 2012) and strikeouts once (2007). He won a Best 9 award in 2012 and made the All Star team five times (2006, 2007, 2010-2012). He played in four Nippon Series (2008, 2009, 2012 and 2013), winning the Series MVP award in 2012 and an "Outstanding Player" award in the 2013 Series. He pitched for the Japanese team in both the 2009 and 2013 World Baseball Classics.

His first baseball cards are from the 2004 BBM Rookie Edition (#52), 1st Version (#273) and Giants (#G11) sets. His first Calbee card was from the 2005 Series Two set (#135). His listing of cards at TCDB.com can be found here and here's a bunch of those cards: