Golden Castle
1. Rose (YBS) .339
2. Yamazaki (CD) .238
3. Matsui (YG) .318
4. Martinez (YG) .315
5. Nishi (YG) .310
----
x. Kinjoh (YBS) .386
Kinjoh should appear on the above list in another 16 or so games. Will he make his debut on top?
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With the rash of injuries to the otherwise consistent Yokohama lineup, 2nd year Kinjoh got a chance to play every day. And he's made the most of it. In 40 (or so) games, Kinjoh is hitting a .409 clip. The only thing keeping Kinjoh off the front page for batting over .400 is the fact that he's only got about 150 at bats, 58 at bats short to qualify for a title, still. With 69 games remaining, averaging 4 at bats per game, that'll be about 276 more at bats, totaling 426 at bats for the year. Since the BayStars have had one tie which needs to be replayed, team players need a total of 136 * 3.1 = 421 plate appearances. At such a pace, he'll make 426 total plate appearances, just enough to qualify. Batting #2 in the lineup, he may even qualify by mid-September. Then how the press will play it up!
Already Kinjoh has accomplished a feat that not even Nomura-kantoku (2nd in all time hits) has, 5 hits in a single game. Of current players, team mate Rose holds the record with 5 hits in a game four times.
In 1999, Kinjoh's first year, he played at 1-gun in 6 games going 2 for 11. I believe that that qualifies him for the Rookie of the Year Award this season. And I haven't been hearing the word "Golden Rookie" at all in the press this season to describe any outstanding freshmen. I can't imagine that it'll be long before "Golden Castle" (Kin = "gold", joh = "castle" - like my daughter's name "Jobana" = "Castle Flower" [yes, I use different spelling conventions than NPB uses]) becomes "Golden Rookie" in the press.
Does anybody have any better nominees for RotY? Hit "Reply" below and tell us about them.
[Updated layout format on Feb 14, 2005 8:58 PM, JST]