{"id":663374,"date":"2026-04-04T20:34:35","date_gmt":"2026-04-04T20:34:35","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/663374\/"},"modified":"2026-04-04T20:34:35","modified_gmt":"2026-04-04T20:34:35","slug":"kenta-maeda-to-make-his-first-npb-appearance-in-11-years-hawks-currently-on-a-3-game-winning-streak-will-start-tomohisa-ozeki-pacific-league","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/663374\/","title":{"rendered":"Kenta Maeda to make his first NPB appearance in 11 years; Hawks, currently on a 3-game winning streak, will start Tomohisa Ozeki | Pacific League"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Kenta Maeda to make his first NPB appearance in 11 years; Tomohisa Tomohisa Ozeki to start for the Hawks, who are on a three-game winning streak.<\/p>\n<p class=\"_source\">Pacific League Insight<\/p>\n<p>                    March 30, 2026 18:01<\/p>\n<p class=\"p-detail_text\">The first game between Tohoku Rakuten Eagles and Fukuoka Softbank will be held at Rakuten Eagles Mobile Saikyo Park Miyagi on March 31st at 4 PM.<\/p>\n<p>[Last season&#8217;s head-to-head record] Tohoku Rakuten Eagles vs. Fukuoka Softbank: 11 wins, 14 losses<\/p>\n<p>[Announced Starting Pitcher]<br \/>Tohoku Rakuten Eagles: Kenta Maeda pitcher 0 wins, 0 losses in 3 games, ERA 3.18 (preseason games)<br \/>Fukuoka Softbank: pitcher Tomohisa Ozeki, 24 games, 13 wins, 5 losses, 1.66 ERA (last season)<\/p>\n<p>Tohoku Rakuten Eagles &#8216;s <a href=\"https:\/\/pacificleague.com\/en\/player\/507082\/news#playerDetail\" onclick=\"_uiconv.push({&#039;id&#039;:&#039;click_intext_\/player\/507082\/news#playerDetail&#039;})\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Kenta Maeda<\/a> pitcher take mound for their home opener. He played in MLB from 2016, appearing in 226 games over nine years and recording 68 wins. This will be his first time on an NPB mound in 11 years, since 2015. Will he be able to secure his first win in front of the fans gathered at his home stadium?<\/p>\n<p>Fukuoka Softbank will be starting pitcher <a href=\"https:\/\/pacificleague.com\/en\/player\/520025\/news#playerDetail\" onclick=\"_uiconv.push({&#039;id&#039;:&#039;click_intext_\/player\/520025\/news#playerDetail&#039;})\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Tomohisa Ozeki<\/a>. Last season, he had a ERA in 24 games. Last season, he started 6 games against Tohoku Rakuten Eagles, with a record of 3 wins and 2 losses and a 1.82 ERA. He will be looking to lead his team to a fourth consecutive win with a performance that lives up to his statistics.<\/p><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Kenta Maeda to make his first NPB appearance in 11 years; Tomohisa Tomohisa Ozeki to start for the&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":663375,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2302],"tags":[5,2353,2352],"class_list":{"0":"post-663374","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-npb","8":"tag-baseball","9":"tag-nippon-professional-baseball","10":"tag-npb"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@mlb\/116348352173901523","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/663374","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=663374"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/663374\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/663375"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=663374"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=663374"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=663374"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}