is a professional baseball player from Ōita City,

Japan Japan ( ja, 日本, or , and formally , ''Nihonkoku'') is an island country in East Asia. It is situated in the northwest Pacific Ocean, and is bordered on the west by the Sea of Japan, while extending from the Sea of Okhotsk in the north ...

. He is part of the starting rotation for the

Hanshin Tigers The Hanshin Tigers (Japanese: 阪神タイガース ''Hanshin Taigāsu'') are a Nippon Professional Baseball team playing in the Central League. The team is based in Nishinomiya, Hyōgo Prefecture, Japan, and is owned by Hanshin Electric Railway ...

baseball team.

Career

In 2006, Ando pitched his first

Shutout In team sports, a shutout ( US) or clean sheet ( UK) is a game in which one team prevents the other from scoring any points. While possible in most major sports, they are highly improbable in some sports, such as basketball. Shutouts are usuall ...

game against

Yokohama BayStars The are a professional baseball team in the Japan, Japanese Central League. Their home field is Yokohama Stadium, located in central Yokohama. The team has been known by several names since becoming a professional team in 1950. It adopted its c ...

. Ando joined the Japanese Olympic baseball team for the

2004 Summer Olympics The 2004 Summer Olympics ( el, Θερινοί Ολυμπιακοί Αγώνες 2004, ), officially the Games of the XXVIII Olympiad ( el, Αγώνες της 28ης Ολυμπιάδας, ) and also known as Athens 2004 ( el, Αθήνα 2004), ...

, and won a bronze medal. Ando went 7-4 in college, battling shoulder problems. He went on to Toyota Motors in the industrial leagues and peaked at 93 mph there, drawing the interest of various scouts. In the

2001 Baseball World Cup The 2001 Baseball World Cup (BWC) was the 34th international Men's amateur baseball tournament. The tournament was sanctioned by the International Baseball Federation, which titled it the Amateur World Series from the 1938 tournament through the ...

, he went 2-0 with a 2.45 ERA, allowing 5 hits and fanning 14 in 11 innings.

References

External links

1977 births Living people People from Ōita (city) Baseball people from Ōita Prefecture Hosei University alumni Hanshin Tigers players Baseball players at the 2004 Summer Olympics Olympic baseball players for Japan Olympic bronze medalists for Japan Olympic medalists in baseball Medalists at the 2004 Summer Olympics Japanese baseball coaches Nippon Professional Baseball coaches {{Japan-baseball-pitcher-stub