On Monday, the Gigantes de Carolina of the Liga de Béisbol Profesional Roberto Clemente (LBPRC), Puerto Rico’s top professional baseball league, announced on Instagram that Japanese left-handed pitcher Haru Matsumoto will play for the club this winter. Matsumoto plays for the Fukuoka SoftBank Hawks in Nippon Professional Baseball.
Matsumoto, 23, made five appearances in the Pacific League for the Hawks in 2024, pitching to a 2.81 ERA with 17 strikeouts in 16 innings. The lefty was dominant for the Hawks’ Western League team, allowing just three earned runs in five games (24.2 innings), suitable for a 1.09 ERA.
Matsumoto will join his Hawks teammate, right-handed pitcher Fuga Ohtake, who joined the Gigantes de Carolina last week. There will be three Japanese pitchers on the Gigantes roster, as former Oakland Athletics and Baltimore Orioles reliever Shintaro Fujinami will also make appearances on the mound for the club. Fujinami is looking to regain command of his offspeed pitches while in Puerto Rico to earn a Major League Baseball contract for 2025.
Matsumoto, a fifth-round draft pick of the Hawks in the 2022 NPB draft out of the Asia University of Japan, made two relief appearances for the club during the 2024 Japan Series against the eventual champion Yokohama DeNA BayStars. He first appeared in game four, throwing one scoreless inning despite allowing a hit.
The lefty recorded just one out in game five of the Japan Series before being pulled from the game. The Hawks lost 7-0, falling behind three games to two. On Sunday, the Hawks lost game six to the BayStars 11-2, which marked the end of their season and title hopes.
Pitching in the LBPRC effectively enables young NPB pitchers to gain experience facing competitive and talented professional hitters during the offseason. A handful of pitchers from NPB have and will also play in the Australian Baseball League, including Chicago Cubs starting pitcher Shota Imanaga, a former BayStar who made six appearances for the Canberra Cavalry during the 2018-19 ABL season.
The opening night of the 2024-25 LBPRC season is just two days away. The season kicks off on Thursday, November 7, with a matchup between the Gigantes de Carolina and the Criollos de Caguas at 7 p.m. EST at Estadio Yldefonso Solá Morales in Caguas, Puerto Rico.
According to an announcement by the official LBPRC Instagram page on October 27, all games of the 2024-25 season can be streamed for free on the league YouTube page and the LBPRC mobile phone app.
