Baseball has not been able to make up for the reputation that has been greatly damaged by the sex scandal.
The sluggish batting continues for a long time, and the old reputation is being tarnished.
This is the story of Hayato Sakamoto (34. Yomiuri), the former starting shortstop of the Japanese national baseball team who is going through a total crisis.
Reputation is down and grades are sluggish. I’m going through a terrible double trouble.
Already he hasn’t hit a home run in close to 20 days. Sakamoto’s most home runs in a season after his debut was 40 in the 2019 season. He went from being a shortstop who hit 40 homers to a silent burden with no hits in every game.
The last time Sakamoto hit a home run was on the 8th. He went 2-for-4 with 1 RBI and 1 run, including a home run, in a game against the Hiroshima Toyo Carp in Hiroshima, batting 6 as shortstop.
This is Sakamoto, who had recorded no hits in 19 at-bats before this game. On this day, he did not hit until his second at-bat.
However, in his third at-bat, he hit a solo home run in mid-month against opposing starter Dokoda, who was fighting hard. He then scored a multi-hit in his last at-bat as well.
Even at this time, it seemed that the prelude to escape from sluggishness was opened. It was all the more meaningful because it was a home run on the anniversary of the death of his benefactor Coach Kimura.
However, even after that, Sakamoto’s sluggishness continued. He hardly ever shows himself alive.
He has only had 3 hits in his last 6 games as well.
His season batting average continues to drop.
His batting average is just 0.153. He is so inaccurate that he is often excluded from the starting lineup.
The admiration that “there is no other shortstop for the Japanese national team other than Sakamoto” has long since been forgotten. The Japanese national team has already found a new starting shortstop, Genda Sosuke (Seibu).
Sakamoto’s slump began last year.
Due to overlapping injuries and sluggishness, he only posted a batting average of 0.286 with 5 home runs and 33 RBIs. Naturally, he was also eliminated from the national team selection and missed the 2023 World Baseball Classic (WBC).
Prior to the start of this season, he was embroiled in a sexual scandal for urging a woman he was dating to have an abortion, and his prestige plummeted.메이저사이트
It was an incident with such a great ripple effect that even Yomiuri, where media control is possible to a certain extent, could not be prevented.
Baseball is the only way to restore honor, but that baseball is not going well for Sakamoto.
Can Sakamoto fire a flare of revival within this season? If this pace continues, no one can guarantee what will happen after the season. The reality is that the possibility of Yomiuri’s declaration of abandonment is being raised.