{"id":585961,"date":"2026-04-04T23:50:13","date_gmt":"2026-04-04T23:50:13","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/585961\/"},"modified":"2026-04-04T23:50:13","modified_gmt":"2026-04-04T23:50:13","slug":"astros-tatsuya-imai-bounces-back-with-9-ks-in-5-2-3-innings-of-shutout-ball-vs-as-in-second-mlb-start","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/585961\/","title":{"rendered":"Astros’ Tatsuya Imai bounces back with 9 Ks in 5 2\/3 innings of shutout ball vs. A’s in second MLB start"},"content":{"rendered":"

Tatsuya Imai felt some nerves last week during his MLB debut against the Los Angeles Angels. The former Nippon Professional Baseball ace, whom the Houston Astros signed to a three-year deal reportedly worth up to $63 million<\/a>, struggled with his command and gave up four walks and four runs in 2 2\/3 innings. The Astros won that day, but the three-time Japanese All-Star didn\u2019t look like himself.<\/p>\n

He discussed afterward how the major-league atmosphere and a difference in the slope of the MLB mound were things he needed to adjust to. Whatever tinkering the right-handed pitcher did over the next week seemingly did the trick.<\/p>\n

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Imai returned to form on Saturday against the Athletics, spinning 5 2\/3 innings of shutout ball while piling up nine strikeouts during his second start in the bigs. He walked three batters, but he made it through nearly six frames, earning the win as the Astros (6-3) coasted to an 11-0 victory<\/a> over the A\u2019s (2-6).<\/p>\n

After signing his contract with the Astros, Imai reportedly earned the second-highest average annual salary of any Japanese-born MLB pitcher<\/a>, behind only Yoshinobu Yamamoto of the Los Angeles Dodgers.<\/p>\n

The 27-year-old righty was coming off an impressive 2025 NPB campaign, in which he posted a 1.92 ERA with 178 strikeouts over 163 2\/3 innings for the Seibu Lions.<\/p>\n

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His stuff was working Saturday against the A\u2019s, especially his slider.<\/p>\n

Imai\u2019s walk numbers will be worth monitoring, particularly because they were concerning early in his career<\/a>. But his whiff rate will require attention, too.<\/p>\n

Imai\u2019s bounce-back performance against the A\u2019s was a welcome sight for the Astros, who have now won six of their past seven games after starting the season 0-2.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Tatsuya Imai felt some nerves last week during his MLB debut against the Los Angeles Angels. The former…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":585962,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[558],"tags":[64,63,5163,5262,1187,591,158775,85,159512,79186,47542],"class_list":{"0":"post-585961","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-mlb","8":"tag-au","9":"tag-australia","10":"tag-houston-astros","11":"tag-los-angeles-angels","12":"tag-los-angeles-dodgers","13":"tag-mlb","14":"tag-nippon-professional-baseball","15":"tag-sports","16":"tag-tatsuya-imai","17":"tag-the-athletics","18":"tag-yoshinobu-yamamoto"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/585961","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=585961"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/585961\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/585962"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=585961"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=585961"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=585961"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}