![]() Combined with his numbers from before he took over as closer, Uehara would finish the regular season with a 1.09 ERA, 0.57 WHIP, 21 saves, 13 holds, and 101 strikeouts. He struck out 59 batters and walked just two during this stretch. He posted video game numbers for the rest of the season, throwing 44 ⅓ innings while posting a 0.44 ERA, 0.36 WHIP, and earning 20 of his 21 saves. Once Uehara took the reins he never looked back. Both relievers succumbed to a combination of injury or ineffectiveness allowing Uehara to take over that closers role for good on June 26. Searching for a new closer, the Red Sox hoped that former All-Star closers Joel Hanrahan or Andrew Bailey would take over the role. ![]() A year after posting a 2.61 ERA in 2011 he put up a 5.36 in 2012. The disastrous 2012 season had seen jack of all trades pitcher Alfredo Aceves step us as the team’s closer. He threw 12 games as a starter in his rookie season with the Orioles posting a 4.02 ERA and really began to shine once he made the transition to relief,posting a 2.36 ERA as a reliever in his three seasons prior to coming to the Red Sox. Uehara broke into the majors with the Orioles before being traded to Texas in 2011. In 2007, at 32, he closed out 31 games for the Giants working as a closer and he pitched in both roles as a 33-year-old during his last season before coming to the majors. Working exclusively as a starter for his first eight seasons with the Giants, Uehara won the Sawamura award for a second time in 2002. The award was not given out in 2019 and on four other occasions. This award is a little different from the Cy Young because the criteria are a bit more strict, needing to come close to the following thresholds or the award is not given out: 15 wins, a 2.50 ERA, 10 complete games, 200 innings, 150 strikeouts, 25 games and a. As a rookie with the Yomiuri Giants in 1999, Uehara won 20 games, including 12 complete games, and posted an ERA of just 2.09 over 197.2 innings pitched to win the Japanese equivalent to the Cy Young Award-the Eiji Sawamura Award. He signed a one- year deal with the Red Sox to prove those numbers were no fluke.īefore coming to the major leagues in 2009, Uehara had pitched ten seasons in the Nippon Professional Baseball League in his native Japan. Despite the injury-shortened season he had posted an ERA of 1.75 and a miniscule 0.64 WHIP. ![]() He was a free agent coming off an excellent 2012 season that was cut short by a lat strain. Uehara was pitching in his age-38 season when he arrived in Boston after having signed with the Red Sox on December 18, 2012. This shouldn’t have worked as well as it did, but I will be forever thankful for this perfect storm of personalities. All of these players brought positive energy and a never say die attitude that would be instrumental to the turnaround the team would make in 2013. He brought in Mike Napoli, Johnny Gomes, Shane Victorino, David Ross, Ryan Dempster, and yes Koji Uehara. In possibly the most masterful offseason he’ll ever have, then General Manager Ben Cherington made the best group of free agent signings perhaps in baseball history. ![]() Very few players had even good years in 2012 and when it came time to turn the page from Valentine and the 2012 season every Red Sox fan exhaled a long sigh of relief. The team had finished in last place, winning just 69 games while losing 93, and they were managed by the least likeable personality in recent coaching history, Bobby Valentine, who seemed to take joy in rankling the players on his own team. The Red Sox were a miserable team in 2012 in every conceivable way. Honors: 2013 World Series Champion, 1x All-Star, 2013 ALCS MVP, 19 Eiji Sawamura Award Winner ![]()
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