is a 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 most recently played

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) ...

. He is currently a free agent.

Early career

In Hamada's senior year with Miyazaki Technical High School, he reached the spring koshien. As the team's

ace An ace is a playing card, die or domino with a single pip. In the standard French deck, an ace has a single suit symbol (a heart, diamond, spade, or club) located in the middle of the card, sometimes large and decorated, especially in the c ...

, he pitched a full game for only two hits in the first round against Maebashi Technical High School but came up short in the second round against Kohei Arihara's Koryo High school conceding a run in the final inning in a walk-off loss. Following graduation he attended Kyushu Sangyo University and in fall of his junior year in a game against

Kyushu Institute of Technology is one of the 87 national universities in Japan. Located in Fukuoka Prefecture on the island of Kyushu, it is dedicated to education and research in the fields of science and technology. It is earlier abbreviated to KIT and is now officially ab ...

he recorded a no-hitter. In spring of his senior year, he guided his team to the best 4 of the Japan National Collegiate Baseball Championship and in the fall he appeared at the Meiji Jingu Baseball Tournament. He ended his university career with a 24–8 record in decisions. On 23 October 2014, he was selected as the second draft pick for the

at the 2014 Nippon Professional Baseball draft where he was given the number 47 shirt.

Professional career

Chunichi Dragons

2015

On the 10 April 2015, Hamada was registered for the first team and on 19 April made his first team debut against the

Hiroshima Carp The is a professional baseball team based in Hiroshima, Japan. They compete in the Central League of Nippon Professional Baseball. The team is primarily owned by the Matsuda family, led by , who is a descendant of Mazda founder Jujiro Mats ...

in the 8th inning where he gave up a career first

home run In baseball, a home run (abbreviated HR) is scored when the ball is hit in such a way that the batter is able to circle the bases and reach home plate safely in one play without any errors being committed by the defensive team. A home run i ...

to Takayoshi Noma followed by a succession of 5 hits resulting in 3 earned runs and leaving him in tears. This was the first time a rookie facing his first batter conceded a career first homerun to a fellow rookie. While there was much expectation over the development of Hamada, this would remain his only game of the season as he was relegated to the farm team for the remainder of the year. As a result of his and the team's poor performance, his contract was slashed by 25% to \7,500,000. In the 2015 off-season he along with teammates Iori Katsura, Shuhei Takahashi, Shota Tomonaga and Junki Kishimoto were loaned to the Taiwanese winter league

2016

Hamada failed to make any appearances for the first team in the 2016 season with his contract being downgraded to a trainee contract for 2017.

References

External links

Dragons.jp

* {{DEFAULTSORT:Hamada, Tomohiro 1992 births Living people Baseball people from Miyazaki Prefecture Japanese baseball players Nippon Professional Baseball pitchers Chunichi Dragons players People from Miyazaki (city)