Alfredo Despaigne connects his fifth home run in Japanese baseball

September 26, 2020

Cuban Alfredo Despaigne connected his fifth home run this Friday in the current Japanese baseball season in his team SoftBank Hawks' loss to the Lotte Marines (4-7).

At the ZOZO Marine Stadium in the city of Chiba, the Caribbean slugger finished the day 4-1, with an RBI, a run scored and a strikeout, so he increased his modest offensive average to .241 and to 11 the number of runs batted in.

Yurisbel Gracial, his compatriot and national team teammate, improved his statistics by closing 4-2, with a double, a single and a run scored, and now shows an average of .271, according to the specialized digital site beisboljapones.com.

Also Cuban Leonys Martín, center fielder for the Marines, shined with the bat, thanks to a pair of hits in four official at-bats. In addition, he crossed home plate once and raised his average to .247.

Likewise, the island's first baseman Dayán Viciedo (5-0) had a modest performance in his team Chunichi Dragons' 4-8 loss to the back-to-back champion Yomiuri Giants at Tokyo Dome.

Viciedo, with one RBI and a strikeout, lowered his average to .266, while his teammate Luis González, from the Dominican Republic, allowed one run and two hits in an inning of relief to raise his ERA to 4.18.

In the aforementioned game, Dominican Ángel Sánchez recorded his fifth victory of the campaign, after allowing four runs and eight hits in five and two-thirds innings of work.

In the rest of the games, the Orix Buffaloes defeated the Nippon Ham Fighters 9-2, the Seibu Lions topped the Rakuten Eagles 5-4 and the Yakult Swallows defeated the Hanshin Tigers 6-3.