Card Of The Week December 14

The Twins Oosterhout of the Netherlands' Honkbal Hoofdklasse announced this weekend that they had signed former Chiba Lotte Marines pitcher Ayumu Ishikawa to a contract.

Ishikawa was the Marines' first round pick in the 2013 draft out of Tokyo Gas of the corporate leagues.  He won ten games in his first season and was the Pacific League Rookie Of The Year.  He followed that up with two more seasons of double digit victories including a 14-5 season in 2016 in which he also led the PL in ERA.  

His career went into a bit of a roller coaster after he pitched for Samurai Japan in the 2017 World Baseball Classic.  Injuries limited him to just 16 games with the top team that season and he went 3-11.  He bounced back in 2018 to pitch well enough to make the All Star team for the second (and last) time.  Injuries in 2019 caused the Marines to move him to the bullpen temporarily but he was back in the starting rotation in 2020.  He pitched pretty well in 2021 and 2022 when healthy but he was unable to stay healthy in 2023, missing almost the entire season.  He only pitched in three games on the farm team, posting a 7.71 ERA.  The Marines released him at the end of the season and resigned him as a development player.

He performed well enough in 2024 to pitch his way back to the 70 man roster and made his first appearance at the ichi-gun level in two years at the end of June.  He went 3-1 with a 3.70 ERA in five games that year but despite that, the Marines pretty much buried him this past season.  He made no appearances with the top team and went 1-2 with a 4.74 ERA in seven games on the farm team.  The Marines released him at the end of the season and offered him a coaching job if he decided to retire.  He declined, wanting to continue to play.  Which it appears he will be doing in Europe next summer.

Here's a card of him from the "Exciting Scene" subset in the 2015 Calbee Series One set (#ES-04) celebrating his ten wins from his rookie season of 2014: