Ikuhiro Kiyota (清田育宏, born February 11, 1986) is a

Japanese Japanese may refer to: * Something from or related to Japan, an island country in East Asia * Japanese language, spoken mainly in Japan * Japanese people, the ethnic group that identifies with Japan through ancestry or culture ** Japanese diaspor ...

professional

baseball Baseball is a bat-and-ball sport played between two teams of nine players each, taking turns batting and fielding. The game occurs over the course of several plays, with each play generally beginning when a player on the fielding tea ...

outfielder An outfielder is a person playing in one of the three defensive positions in baseball or softball, farthest from the batter. These defenders are the left fielder, the center fielder, and the right fielder. As an outfielder, their duty is to cat ...

who is currently a free agent. He has played in

Nippon Professional Baseball or NPB is the highest level of baseball in Japan. Locally, it is often called , meaning ''Professional Baseball''. Outside Japan, it is often just referred to as "Japanese baseball". The roots of the league can be traced back to the formation ...

(NPB) for the

Chiba Lotte Marines The are a professional baseball team in Japan's Pacific League based in Chiba City, Chiba Prefecture, in the Kantō region, and owned by Lotte Holdings Co., Ltd. History The Marines franchise began in 1950 as the Mainichi Orions, an inaugural ...

Professional career

Kiyota began his professional career in 2010 with the

. He made his NPB debut on May 24, 2010, and won the

Japan Series The Japan Series ( , officially the Japan Championship Series, ), also the Nippon Series, :File:2014_JS_logo.png is the annual championship series in Nippon Professional Baseball, the top baseball league in Japan. It is a best-of-seven series ...

with the club that year. In 2011, Kiyota batted .244/.293/.370 with 3 home runs and 25 RBI. The next year, he had improved production, batting .281/.363/.391 with 3 home runs and 29 RBI. He regressed a bit in 2013, batting .255/.359/.375 with 3 home runs and 18 RBI. He struggled in 2014, batting just .170/.316/.511 in 24 games. In 2015, Kiyota had a breakout season, slashing .317/.387/.503 with career-highs in home runs (15) and RBI (67). He was named a Pacfiic League All-Star, won a

Gold Glove Award The Rawlings Gold Glove Award, usually referred to as simply the Gold Glove, is the award given annually to the Major League Baseball (MLB) players judged to have exhibited superior individual fielding performances at each fielding position in bo ...

, and won a Pacific League

Best Nine Award The Best Nine Award is awarded annually to the best player at each position in both the Central League and Pacific League of Japanese professional baseball as determined by a pool of journalists. History While the Best Nine Award was first presen ...

. Kiyota batted .225 with 6 home runs and 38 RBI on the year in 2016, but his production wavered the next year, as he hit only .203/.287/.286 with 3 home runs and 21 RBI. In 2018, Kiyota batted .226/.306/.295 with 2 home runs and 27 RBI. He improved the next year, posting a .253/.325/.378 batting line with 10 home runs and 57 RBI. In 2020, he continued to produce, hitting .278/.363/.467 with 7 home runs and 23 RBI in 70 games. On May 23, 2021, Kiyota was released by the Marines after he violated

COVID-19 Coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) is a contagious disease caused by a virus, the severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2). The first known case was COVID-19 pandemic in Hubei, identified in Wuhan, China, in December ...

protocols in 2020 and had illicit relations with a woman after that.

References

External links

1986 births Living people People from Kamagaya Baseball people from Chiba Prefecture Toyo University alumni Japanese baseball players Nippon Professional Baseball outfielders Chiba Lotte Marines players {{Japan-baseball-outfielder-stub