Shintaro Fujinami Cruises, Then Stalls in A's Debut

The hype surrounding the debut of Shintaro Fujinami began on January 17.

That's when the Oakland A's held their first press conference to introduce a player in over a decade, when they introduced Hiroyuki Nakajima in 2012. It's not very often that a new player gets the kind of attention Fujinami has received, and it's even more rare for them to be represented by Scott Boras, the biggest agent in baseball. All eyes were on Fujinami in his debut.

Fujinami did not disappoint in his big league debut on Saturday for the first two innings. Then in the third, things fell apart. 

"The 3-2 pitch [to Luis Rengifo] was a slider, so we walked the leadoff guy and it just seemed to spiral on him there" manager Mark Kotsay said after the game. 

In that nightmare third inning, Fujinami gave up five hits, eight runs, and walked three. The lone out he recorded was on an Anthony Rendon sacrifice fly that scored a run. 

Adam Oller came into the game in the third, with one out and had some trouble of his own, walking Rengifo (his second walk of the inning), then allowing a two-run single to Gio Urshela, allowing all of the inherited runners to score. 

But the Angels weren't done just yet. Logan O'Hoppe added a sac-fly and Taylor Ward crushed a two-run homer to left. The Halos finished with an 11-run inning. The game ended up a 13-1 drubbing. 

After the game, the focus was on the positive for A's catcher Shea Langeliers. "Obviously today didn't go how we wanted it to go, but I think the start of [the game] showed you what it could be, and that's exciting."

Fuji said through his interpreter Issei Kamada, "The first two innings the fastball was working very well. In the third inning I threw too much off-speed. Just getting on a big league mound is not good enough. Next time I'll try to be better."

Through the first two innings, Fujinami was using a heavy dosage of his fastball, which touched 99.6 mph, and his 94.8 mph splitter. In the third, he started mixing in his slider more, and the Angels were all over it. The first four batters of the Angel third reached base on either the slider or the sweeper.

Shea Langeliers said that those pitches were left a little higher in the zone than they probably would have liked them. 

A's left fielder Seth Brown went over to Fujinami in the clubhouse and offered his own words of encouragement. "I told him this is the big leagues, and you're facing the best hitters in the world. His stuff looks fantastic. Just to stay confident and keep going out there and doing what he's doing, because it's all progress and it's all process out there."

Brown also told Fuji that the best people in the world get banged up in the big leagues, so stay confident because his stuff looks nasty. 

The game got out of hand early, but we also saw Ramón Laureano hit the first A's home run of the season in the fifth, and Rule 5 pick Ryan Noda also got his first at-bat in the Major Leagues, coming into the game as a defensive replacement in the eighth. He got behind on a quick 0-2, but used his timeout before evening up the count at 2-2. He struck out to end the AB, but he also showed some poise for a guy still learning the big leagues. 

Backup catcher Carlos Pérez also got his first at-bat in the big leagues since September of 2018, and in his trip to the dish recorded his first hit since June 10. That hit came off of former Cy Young winner Dallas Keuchel. Today's hit came against left-hander Tucker Davidson, who ended up earning the save. 

"I was ready for that moment" Pérez said after the game. 

The game on Saturday may not have been the debut that A's fans were hoping for from Fujinami, but the belief that he has what it takes to succeed on the mound is still very present in the clubhouse.