List of top Nippon Professional Baseball strikeout pitchers

The following is a list of Nippon Professional Baseball pitchers who have recorded at least 2,000 strikeouts. In baseball, a strikeout occurs when the batter receives three strikes during his time at bat. Strikeouts are associated with dominance on the part of the pitcher and failure on the part of the batter.

Masaichi Kaneda has the most career strikeouts in Nippon Professional Baseball. During a 19-year career, he struck out 4,490 batters.

The List

† Denotes elected to Japanese Baseball Hall of Fame.
Bold Denotes active player.

A player is considered "inactive" if he has not played baseball for one year or has announced his retirement.
Stats updated as of the end of 2015 season.[1][2]

Rank Player (R/L) K Years pitched
1 Masaichi Kaneda (L) † 4,490 1950–1969
2 Tetsuya Yoneda (R) † 3,388 1956–1977
3 Masaaki Koyama (R) † 3,159 1953–1973
4 Keishi Suzuki (L) † 3,061 1966–1985
5 Yutaka Enatsu (L) 2,987 1967–1984
6 Takao Kajimoto (L) † 2,945 1954–1973
7 Kimiyasu Kudoh (L) † 2,852 1981–2010
8 Kazuhisa Inao (R) † 2,574 1956–1969
9 Choji Murata (R) † 2,363 1968–1990
10 Masahiro Yamamoto (L) 2,310 1986–2015
11 Minoru Murayama (R) † 2,271 1959–1972
12 Shoichi Ono (L) 2,244 1956–1970
13 Toshiya Sugiuchi (L) 2,156 2002–2015
14 Hiromi Makihara (R) 2,111 1983–2001
15 Kazuhisa Kawaguchi (L) 2,092 1981–1998
16 Hisashi Yamada (R) † 2,058 1969–1988
17 Nobuyuki Hoshino (L) 2,041 1984–1999
18 Hiromu Matsuoka (R) 2,008 1968–1985

References

  1. ^ MLB.com – Career Leaders for Strikeouts
  2. ^ Baseball Reference – MLB Career Leaders and Records for Strikeouts

See also