is a retired professional Japanese

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 t ...

player. He was a

pitcher In baseball, the pitcher is the player who throws ("pitches") the baseball from the pitcher's mound toward the catcher to begin each play, with the goal of retiring a batter, who attempts to either make contact with the pitched ball or draw ...

for the

Chunichi Dragons The are a professional baseball team based in Nagoya, the chief city in the Chūbu region of Japan. The team plays in the Central League of Nippon Professional Baseball. They have won the Central League pennant nine times (most recently in 2011) ...

Early career

In his university career, Kaneko performed as both a starter and a reliever for

Osaka University of Commerce , abbreviated to , is a private university located in Higashiosaka City, Osaka Prefecture, Japan. History The origin was founded in 1928 as Osaka Joto School of Commerce (大阪城東商業学校) by Noboru Tanioka (谷岡登, 1894–1 ...

. In the Kansai6 Baseball League in Spring of his third year, Kaneko recorded 4 consecutive

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 ...

s. His overall record for his university was 65 games played with a 23–17 win-loss record and a 1.85

ERA An era is a span of time defined for the purposes of chronology or historiography, as in the regnal eras in the history of a given monarchy, a calendar era used for a given calendar, or the geological eras defined for the history of Earth. Comp ...

. He is one year the university senior of teammate, Iori Katsura. At the 2014 Nippon Professional Baseball draft, Kaneko was selected 9th by the

where he went on to sign a ¥6,000,000 contract with a ¥15,000,000 sign on bonus.

Professional career

Chunichi Dragons

2015

On 16 April, Kaneko made his debut against 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 Railwa ...

at the Nagoya Dome in one inning of relief where he retired 3 batters in a row. He was the first of the 4 pitchers drafted in 2014 to make his debut. Kaneko would go on to play in a further 10 games all coming as a relief pitcher where he threw 13.2 innings with a 3.95 ERA and 12 strikeouts.

2016

Only one appearance would happen for Kaneko in 2016 where on May 8 he took charge of the 9th inning against the

Yomiuri Giants The are a Japanese professional baseball team competing in Nippon Professional Baseball's Central League. Based in Bunkyo, Tokyo, they are one of two professional baseball teams based in Tokyo, the other being the Tokyo Yakult Swallows. They ...

with the Dragons holding an 11–2 lead where Kaneko gave up a 2-run homerun to

Yoshiyuki Kamei was a Japanese politician and member of the House of Representatives of Japan representing Kanagawa Prefecture. Biography Yoshiyuki Kamei was born on 30 April 1936. He graduated from Keio University in 1962. He was Minister of Agricult ...

before closing out.

References

External links

Dragons.jp

1993 births Living people Baseball people from Osaka Prefecture Japanese baseball players Nippon Professional Baseball pitchers Chunichi Dragons players Sportspeople from Ibaraki, Osaka {{Japan-baseball-pitcher-stub