Takashi Saito
Japanese baseball player (born 1970)
Takashi Saito (斎藤 隆, Saitō Takashi; born February 14, 1970) is a Japanese former professional baseball pitcher who is currently the chief pitching coach for the Yokohama DeNA BayStars of Nippon Professional Baseball (NPB).
Saito's professional career spanned 23 years. He spent his first 13 seasons pitching for the Yokohama Taiyo Whales / BayStars in the Japanese Central League, compiling a record of 87–80, usually as a starter. He spent the next seven seasons in Major League Baseball (MLB) as a closer and relief pitcher, before finishing his career in Japan with the Tohoku Rakuten Golden Eagles. In his first MLB season of 2006, Saito finished eighth in the National League Cy Young Award voting. In his second season, he was named an All-Star. Dodgers broadcaster Vin Scully bestowed the nickname "the Man from Miyagi" upon him, in reference to the prefecture that encompasses Saito's place of birth. He was also nicknamed "Sammy" by his Dodgers teammates Andre Ethier and Matt Kemp, who affectionally compared him to Sammy Sosa.
Career
Japan
Saito played for Tohoku Fukushi University in Sendai during his college years alongside players such as closer Kazuhiro Sasaki (who went on to play for the Seattle Mariners) and left fielder Tomoaki Kanemoto (who went on to play for the Hanshin Tigers). Saito was originally a position player, but he became a pitcher in his second year in college.
The public source identifies “Takashi Saito” as japanese baseball player (born 1970). This brief keeps that definition visible, then builds a research path around Takashi, Saito and Japanese.
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Biographical claims are most persuasive when dates, appointments and relationships can be traced to records created close to the events described. The source revision retrieved here is dated Jul 23, 2025. The linked authority identifier is Q1001871. VIAF identifies the subject as 251590516. 2 of 2 selected statements include explicit references; 0 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 1970 and 2006.
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This entry incorporates text from “Takashi Saito” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.