This supplied photo shows Yoshinobu Yamamoto. (Kyodo)

       TOKYO (Kyodo) -- Yoshinobu Yamamoto, the 23-year-old ace pitcher of the Pacific League champion Orix Buffaloes and the Olympic gold medal-winning Japan national team, won the Eiji Sawamura Award as Japan's most impressive starting pitcher for the first time on Monday.

       Yamamoto won 18 games with a 1.39 ERA over 193-2/3 innings while notching 206 strikeouts, completing six games and throwing four shutouts, all league-leading figures, while posting a league-best .783 win percentage as well.

       "You can't even try to compare Yamamoto with other pitchers," said the award committee's chair, former Yomiuri Giants ace Tsuneo Horiuchi.

       Yamamoto, a candidate to win the PL Most Valuable Player Award, set a franchise record by winning 15 straight decisions, and became only the second PL player, after Masahiro Tanaka in 2013, to win four straight pitcher of the month awards.

       The award panel comprising former pitchers meets and makes its selection every year on the first travel day of the Japan Series. The award, sponsored by the Yomiuri Shimbun, is named after the Giants' first ace pitcher, Eiji Sawamura.

       The committee uses six statistical benchmarks to evaluate pitchers' worthiness: 25-plus games started, 10 complete games, 15-plus wins, a .600-plus winning percentage, 200-plus innings, 150-plus strikeouts and an ERA of 2.50 or better.

       Yamamoto only missed two targets, for innings pitched and complete games, the latter drawing a comment from panelist Choji Murata, the Hall of Fame former Lotte ace.

       "He had too few complete games," Murata said. "I understand pitchers work at the discretion of their managers, so it is very hard, but I think he should try to get more. That goes for all pitchers."

       Font Size S M L Print Timeline 0