A Japanese professional baseball pitcher who now plays for the Toronto Blue Jays in Major League Baseball, Yusei Kikuchi was born in 1992.
In the past, he has been a member of the Major League Baseball’s Seattle Mariners and the Saitama Seibu Lions of the Nippon Professional Baseball (NPB).
He is a left-handed pitcher with a height of 6 feet (1.8 meters), a weight of 200 pounds (91 kg), and an arm angle of three-quarters. His best fastball speed was 99 miles per hour.
Kikuchi made his debut in the professional ranks in 2009 and was chosen to participate in the NPB All-Star game in 2018. He is the first player who was born in Japan to make his Major League Baseball debut in Japan.
Kikuchi had a rough debut year with the Mariners, finishing with a record of 6–11 and a 5.46 earned run average over 32 starts.
In 2020, he had an earned-run average of 5.17 and upped his strikeout ratio to 24 per cent from 16.1 per cent the previous year. Kikuchi inked a deal with the Toronto Blue Jays in 2021 that was for a total of $36 million over three years.
What Happened To Kikuchi?
Kikuchi, a pitcher for the Japanese team, went down with a neck injury. Kikuchi’s start in Oakland was a difficult one, as he ended up surrendering four earned runs over the course of 2.1 innings.
Due to this, he was unable to participate in the game and was placed on an injured reserve for 15 days.