Is the new manager Nishiguchi, who served as Hanwha's interim coach, able to save Seibu with 88 losses?

Sep 23, 2024

Nishiguchi 2nd division coach appointed as Seibu's next coach. He is a right-hander legend who has won 182 games for Seibu for 21 years. He joined Hanwha's Okinawa spring camp as an instructor in 2016 and has experience coaching pitchers. Photo Capture = Sports Nippon

This time, '182 wins' right-hander Legend will go out to rebuild the team.

The Seibu Lions have appointed Fumiya Nishiguchi (52), the head coach of the second division, as their new head coach. He is a baseball player who retired from playing for Seibu for 21 years and worked as a leader for Seibu. Japanese sports magazine Sports Nippon reported on the 23rd that the Seibu club has decided to promote itself as a new coach next season. An official announcement is expected immediately after the end of the regular season.

Nishiguchi has ties to the Korean professional baseball league. In late February 2016, shortly after his retirement, he coached pitchers as instructors at the Hanwha Eagles Okinawa spring camp. It was a time when head coach Kim Sung-geun was in charge of Hanwha's head coach.

Seibu, the most winning team in the Pacific League, is experiencing its worst this season. When he fell to the bottom of the league in the beginning of the season, he suddenly replaced Kazuo Matsui (49), a legendary infielder. At the end of May, ahead of the Central League and the Interleague, Watanabe Hisano, 59, took the helm. Unusually, he threw a game-winning move with a leadership change at the beginning of the season.

But it crashed without a rebound. Under Watanabe, who once served as the head coach, he fell into a deeper quagmire. As of the 22nd, with nine games left in the regular season, he has 88 losses (44 wins, 2 draws, a winning percentage of 333). Since the launch of the Seibu club, it has been breaking its most losses in a season. At one point, he was worried about losing 100 games in the season as his winning rate dropped to around 20%.

Manager and general manager Watanabe, a pitcher who won three times during his active career, led Seibu for five years from 2008. In 2008, his first year as a coach, he led Seibu to a Japan Series championship. But this time it was helpless.

Watanabe, the head coach and general manager, "I feel responsible for the failure to rebuild the team. I'm sorry to the fans," he said, expressing his intention to step down as the head coach as well as the general manager.

The Seibu club has been working on the appointment of the next head coach since the end of August. It is said that leaders from other clubs have also reviewed the list up. After a long period of consideration, Nishiguchi, the head coach of the second division, who is well aware of the team's situation and problems, was judged to be the right person.

Watanabe coach and general manager Kazuo Matsui stepped down and took the helm at the end of May. Seibu tried to change the atmosphere, but it fell into a deeper quagmire. Photo capture = Seibu Lions SNS

Coach Nishiguchi joined Seibu in 1995 with the third nomination as a rookie after attending Ritsho University. He pitched in 436 games in 21 seasons until 2015 and won 182 games (118 losses, 3.73 ERA). He has won multiple titles twice and has recorded double-digit wins for seven consecutive years since 1996. Nishiguchi won the 1997 Sawamura Award and the MVP Award, with 15 wins. He was Seibu's leading pitcher who started the opening game five times.

He worked for five years as a pitcher coach for Seibu's first and second teams and three years as a second team manager. After serving as a first-team pitching coach, he went down to the second-team in 2022 when Matsui took over. This season, Seibu's second division has been competing for the lead in the Eastern League (second division league).

This season, Seibu struggled due to lack of scoring ability than the mound. He was not bad with a 3.11 ERA and fourth place in the Pacific League. Young flagship pitchers are good. The team's batting average is 201, which is the overwhelming last among the 12 teams in both leagues as well as the Pacific League. He scored 316 points in 134 games, 252 fewer than the No. 1 Softbank Hawks. This is the result of leaving the team when the main hitters become free agents (FAs) over the past few years.