Washington Nationals Japanese Rookie Has Less Than Ideal MLB Debut
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The Washington Nationals have been dealing with a number of struggles in 2025, and chief among them has been the terrible overall production they have received from their starting rotation.
Outside of their star ace in MacKenzie Gore, the rest of the Nationals' starters have fallen woefully short of expectations, which has, in turn, made it extremely challenging for the team as a whole to find any sort of consistent success.
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As such, the highly anticipated debut of star Japanese pitcher Shinnosuke Ogasawara on Sunday afternoon against the Boston Red Sox stirred excitement among many to see just what the left-hander was capable of.
Washington signed the former NPB star to a two-year, $3.5 million deal in January, marking the first time the Nationals had signed a player directly from Japan.
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The lefty flashed the tools a club looks for in a starter early on in Triple-A before being sidelined with a strained oblique, and clearly felt that he was ready to make the jump to the big league level following his reinstatement from the IL.
Unfortunately for both Ogasawara and Washington, though, the Japanese star's first big league start didn't end up going the way either party had hoped it would.
The lefty only lasted 2.2 innings against the Red Sox, getting tagged for seven hits and four earned runs before skipper Davey Martinez decided to pull the plug. A short rain delay in the second inning didn't help.
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Ogasawara has always been a ground-ball pitcher who makes his living by inducing soft contact and doing his best to avoid leaving anything out over the plate.
He's adopted this style of pitching due to the low velocity he possesses on all of his pitches, with his fastball sitting right around 87 MPH, and his off-speed stuff sitting much lower than that.
For whatever reason, Ogasawara simply wasn't able to locate his pitches well enough to keep a red-hot Boston lineup from teeing off on him, which led to the early exit.
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While this certainly wasn't the debut performance Ogasawara was looking for, there were still some positives from his performance that both he and the Nationals can build upon moving forward.
With as poorly as the rest of the rotation has been pitching as of late, it's very likely the lefty will get more opportunities to prove he belongs at the big league level over the coming weeks.
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Georgia native and avid Atlanta sports fan who has lived in the Charlotte area for the past eight years. Got started writing about sports for my middle school paper and haven’t stopped since. Graduate from the University of North Carolina at Charlotte and proud 49er. Passionate sports writer who has covered everything from high school soccer to the NFL for several prominent outlets including the Charlotte Observer, ESPN, and the Carolina Panthers. Also covered the South Carolina Gamecocks football program as the lead beat writer for Last Word on College Football, and was a contributing writer for several other notable online publications such as Yardbarker. Lives and breathes sports and will watch whatever is on or in season. Favorite teams include the Braves, Hawks, Falcons, and Georgia Bulldogs. Massive Jordan Speith and Rory McIlroy fan on the PGA Tour