Keiichi Hirano

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Keiichi Hirano (平野 恵一)

BR register page

Biographical Information[edit]

Keiichi Hirano played in Nippon Pro Baseball for 14 years.

Hirano hit .321 with 34 RBI, and he made the Best Nine six times in the Tokyo Metropolitan Area University Baseball League. He was a second-round pick of the Orix BlueWave in 2001 NPB draft. He made it to the big club for seven games in 2002. On September 21, he legged out an infield hit off Hiroshi Takamura for his first safety in NPB. He was 5 for 22 with a walk and a steal for the year. He was with the Japanese national team for the 2002 Asian Games. Hirano was a backup middle infielder for Orix in 2003, batting .252/.305/.348. On July 4, he took Satoru Kanemura deep for his first home run. When Jose Ortiz moved from second base to first base in 2004, Koichi Oshima initially won the starting second base job, but Hirano took over as the year progressed. He finished at .279/.340/.411 with 7 triples in 124 games. He was one triple behind Pacific League leader Munenori Kawasaki.

In 2005, Hirano and batted .285/.347/.340, usually batting second and playing second for Orix. He made the PL All-Star team, and he had a 3-for-5 record in 2 games in the 2005 NPB All-Star Game. He was 7th in the league with 16 sacrifice hits. Keiichi only played 33 games in 2006, hitting .235/.276/.347 before badly injuring himself in a collision with the fence, causing him to miss most of the year. Returning to action in 2007, Keiichi struggled at .216/.287/.275 in 58 games. Orix dealt him with Kenta Abe to the Hanshin Tigers for Makoto Yoshino and Osamu Hamanaka in the off-season. They installed him as their second baseman and #2 hitter (between Norihiro Akahoshi and Takahiro Arai. He hit .263/.333/.307 with a Central League-leading 47 sacrifice hits and won NPB Comeback Player of the Year honors. Hirano put up a .270/.318/.332 line in 2009. He was third in the league with 28 sacrifice hits and tied for third with five triples, behind Akihiro Higashide and Soichiro Amaya.

The veteran made major strides and hit .350/.399/.421 in 2010. He was second in the league in average (behind Norichika Aoki and one point ahead of #3 Matt Murton), tied for 7th with 172 hits (even with Eishin Soyogi and Alex Ramirez), tied for 5th with 5 triples, led with 59 sacrifice hits and tied Masahiko Morino for third in OBP (trailing Kazuhiro Wada and Aoki). He broke Hanshin's single-season sacrifice bunts record. Hirano was also selected into the 2010 NPB All-Star Game, and he was 1-for-3 in 2 games. He won the Best Nine and NPB Gold Glove at second base.

Hirano extended his solid performance in 2011, and he hit .295/.341/.343 with 5 triples. He won the Gold Glove and Best Nine again. He ranked 4th in hits (160, between Hisayoshi Chono and Kenta Kurihara), 3rd in triples (5, tied with Aoki) and 5th in batting (between Takashi Toritani and Kurihara). Hirano was voted into the 2011 NPB All-Star Game, but he was hitless in 3 games. He attended the 2012 NPB All-Star Game, and he had a 3-for-6 record. He ended up hitting .245/.313/.271 in 134 games in 2012, and he announced that he would become a free agent. The Orix Buffaloes signed him, and he only played 56 games with a .313/.361/.369 batting line due to a foot injury in 2013. He hit .268/.331/.319 with 19 sacrifice bunts in 2014, but he suffered from injuries again in 2015. Hirano recorded a .262/.333/.299 batting line, and he announced his retirement.

After retiring, he became the minor league fielding coach for Hanshin in 2016. He was named the batting coach for Hanshin from 2017 to 2019, and he coached their minors team from 2020 to 2021. Hirano then then became the batting coach of the CTBC Brothers of Taiwan from 2022 to 2023, and he was their manager in 2024 after Wei-Chu Lin was fired. He led the Brothers as they won the 2024 Taiwan Series.

Sources[edit]

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