is a Japanese professional baseball player for the

Tohoku Rakuten Golden Eagles The , often shortened as the , are a baseball team based in Sendai, Miyagi Prefecture, Japan. It has played in Nippon Professional Baseball's Pacific League since the team's formation in November 2004. The team is owned by the Internet shopping c ...

of the

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). His wife is a Japanese actress

Anna Ishibashi is a Japanese actress and model. Career Ishibashi starred in Ryuichi Hiroki's ''Your Friend'' in 2008. She was given a Best New Talent award at the 2008 Yokohama Film Festival. She appeared in Koji Maeda's ''Cannonball Wedlock'' in 2011. Film ...

Career

Amateur career

As a pitcher for Toko Gakuen high school, he won a 7–0 victory against Imabari-Nishi high school where he racked up 22 strikeouts. Later on, he struck out 19 batters at

Koshien Stadium , commonly referred to as simply Koshien Stadium, is a baseball park located near Kobe, Hyōgo, Kobe in Nishinomiya, Hyōgo Prefecture, Japan. The stadium was built to host the High school baseball in Japan, national high school baseball tourn ...

and won a 7–5 game over Joso Gakuin. He also struck out the same amount in 2005, which ranked him along with Yoshinori Toda in 1963.

Tohoku Rakuten Golden Eagles

In October 2013, he was selected by five teams in the

2013 Nippon Professional Baseball draft The 2013 Nippon Professional Baseball (NPB) Draft was held on October 24, , for the 49th time at the Grand Prince Hotel Takanawa to assign amateur baseball players to the NPB.　It was arranged with the special cooperation of Taisho Pharmaceutic ...

, with the

winning the rights to negotiate with him. On April 2, 2014 his team scored 7–1 against

Orix Buffaloes The are a Nippon Professional Baseball team formed as a result of the 2004 Nippon Professional Baseball realignment by the merger of the Orix BlueWave of Kobe, Hyōgo Prefecture, Japan, and the Osaka Kintetsu Buffaloes of Osaka, Osaka Prefectur ...

even though he made only three runs. Matsui is a 5 ft 9 in, 163 lb left-handed pitcher. With an overhand delivery he throws a fastball topping out at 96 mph, a change-up, an occasional curveball, and a solid slider around 80 mph, which is his best pitch. He mostly uses his fastball-slider combination in games.

International career

He was selected

Japan national baseball team The is the national team representing Japan in international baseball competitions. It won the World Baseball Classic in 2006 and 2009, as well as WBSC Premier12 in 2019. The team is currently ranked 1st in the world by the World Baseball Sof ...

at the 2013 18U Baseball World Cup, 2015 exhibition games against Europe,

2015 WBSC Premier12 The 2015 WBSC Premier12 was an international baseball championship sponsored by the World Baseball Softball Confederation (WBSC), the inaugural event of the WBSC Premier12. It was held from November 8 to 21 in Taiwan and Japan. The South Korean ...

2017 World Baseball Classic The 2017 World Baseball Classic (WBC) was an international professional baseball competition, composed of 16 competing nations, held from March 6 to March 22, 2017. It was the fourth iteration of the World Baseball Classic. The first-round hosts ...

and

2018 MLB Japan All-Star Series The 2018 MLB Japan All-Star Series was the twelfth edition of the MLB Japan All-Star Series, a best-of-six series between an All-Star team from Major League Baseball (MLB) and for the second time in series history, the Japanese national team, Sa ...

. On October 10, 2018, he was selected at the 2018 MLB Japan All-Star Series. On October 1, 2019, he was selected at the 2019 WBSC Premier12. But, on October 21, he canceled due to left elbow discomfort.

References

External links

Yuki Matsui on a JapanBall Blog
1995 births Living people Baseball people from Yokohama Japanese baseball players Nippon Professional Baseball pitchers Tohoku Rakuten Golden Eagles players 2015 WBSC Premier12 players 2017 World Baseball Classic players 2023 World Baseball Classic players {{Japan-baseball-bio-stub