Atsushi Nohmi

Name (Japanese): 能見 篤史

Career Stats:

Brief Biography:

Atsushi Nohmi was born in the town of Izushi (which has since been merged into Toyooka City), Hyogo Prefecture. He attended high school at Tottori Johoku High, and had great success in local tournaments. His school never made it to the national tournament at Koshien, though. Still, Nohmi had gained enough fame to be part of the threesome known as the Three High School Southpaw Crows (along with Tomoya Kawaguchi and future teammate Kei Igawa).

Nohmi went directly to industrial league baseball out of high school, and played for Osaka Gas. Unfortunately, injuries plagued him early on, to the point that he became known as a “Phantom Pitcher” to fans of the team. He was even prepared to retire if he was unable to get results by his fifth year. Fortunately, he had a solid 2003, and then was named to the All-Japan team that went to the Haarlem Baseball Week tournament in the Netherlands in 2004. That fall, he was drafted by the Hanshin Tigers.

Nohmi’s rookie season (2005) showed just what a gap there is between the Central League (top squad) and the Western League (farm team). His ERA on the top squad was a robust 5.57, while he boasted a skinny 1.42 on the farm. His sophomore year (2006) was not much better. He threw out of the bullpen at season’s start while Jeff Williams recovered from offseason knee surgery, but was sent to the farm after Williams came back. His numbers were not so great there, either. That winter, he played winter ball in Hawaii with the Waikiki Beach Boys. He did fairly well there, even throwing 5 scoreless innings in the championship game. His team eventually went on to lose the game, unfortunately.

The 2007 season was not a stellar one for Nohmi, who showed some signs of stardom (a complete game win) but also had several meltdowns on the top squad, both as starter and reliever. Once again, he put up great farm numbers, earning six wins (in just seven starts) and posting a 2.51 ERA. He continued this trend in 2008 as well, playing just 11 games on the top squad (with poor results), but posting a 0.83 ERA on the farm with 11 saves.

Fortunately (?) for Nohmi, teammate and fellow southpaw Minoru Iwata was injured at the start of 2009, giving Nohmi a slot in the rotation. He did not fare particularly well at first, due in part to poor run support, and ended up in the bullpen just before the All-Star Break. However, he rejoined the rotation soon after that, and posted a complete game shutout against the Yomiuri Giants (2 H, 12 K). He stayed in the rotation the rest of the season, earning 13 wins and finishing 4th in the Central in ERA.

The 2010 season was a decent one for the Tigers, but Nohmi missed 4 months of it to injury. He pitched well when healthy, even winning Pitcher of the Month in September. Expectations for Nohmi were starting to heighten at this point.

In fact, he was named the team’s Opening Day starter in 2011, and he won the game. Later in the year, he earned his 8th straight win against the Giants (dating back to 2010), and he became known as a “Kyojin Killer.” The streak came to an end on June 26th, though. In 2011, Nohmi threw a career-high 200⅓ innings. Once again, Nohmi opened the season as the starter in 2012, and had a solid start to the year. Despite a midseason mini-slump, he picked up his game again at season’s end, and finished tied for the CL lead for most strikeouts.

Nohmi was named to the 2013 WBC team, but did not perform well against Taiwan (second round) or Puerto Rico (semi-finals). The highlight of his season came early in the year: on May 6 against the Giants (at Tokyo Dome), he threw a complete game and hit his first career home run. He would finish the year with double-digits in wins for the third straight season, and also record a sub-2.70 ERA for the fifth straight year.

The 2014 season started with the wrong type of double digits: he allowed 10 earned runs in the season opener against the Giants at Tokyo Dome. Despite his ERA spiking by more than a full run from his career average, he set a new Central League record with five consecutive double-digit strikeout starts from May 16 until June 14. He also threw 8 shutout innings in Game 2 of the Climax Series First Stage against the Hiroshima Carp (a tie game that punched the Tigers’ ticket to the next round).

Nohmi was unable to regain ace status again in 2015. He led the league in losses with 13 for the second straight season, and once again had a disastrous outing against the Giants. On August 19th at Tokyo Dome, he headed into the fifth inning completely unscathed, but then he got rocked, allowing six straight hits. Though he left the game at that point, the Giants went on to score 12 runs that inning – the worst inning in Hanshin history. Furthermore, Nohmi was sent to the bullpen at season’s end, due in part to closer Seung-hwan Oh’s injury. He was on the mound when the Yakult Swallows clinched the pennant at Jingu Stadium on October 2.

The 2016 season started on a real positive note: Nohmi picked up the first win of Tomoaki Kanemoto’s managing career on March 26. The remainder of the first half saw Nohmi exchanging good and bad outings, but it took until June 14 for Nohmi to record his fourth win on the year. Another somewhat cold stretch lasted until July 27th, when he threw a complete game shutout against the Swallows at Koshien Stadium. He once again traded good and bad starts through the second half of the season before making a few relief appearances at season’s end. As he pitched well, it seemed he might make his way to the bullpen permanently in 2017.

But instead, the team moved lefty Suguru Iwazaki to the bullpen, opting to leave Nohmi in the rotation. He started the season quite well, and allowed just one earned run the entire month of May (but somehow was not chosen as pitcher of the month). Unfortunately, Nohmi hit a rough patch in July, and ended the year with just six wins. This was due in part to poor run support, however. The regular season ended on a high note, as Nohmi threw a 93-pitch complete game shutout against the Yokohama DeNA BayStars on September 28. Unfortunately, those same BayStars got to him early in Game 3 of the Climax Series (First Stage @ Koshien Stadium). Nohmi recorded only one out while giving up three runs as the team was eliminated.

The 2018 season started in a rather forgettable way for Nohmi. He lost his first three starts of the year, and was sent down to the farm. When he came back, he was used exclusively out of the bullpen. Perhaps this is just what the doctor ordered, as he threw 42 innings from June onwards, giving up just four earned runs (an ERA of 0.86!). He also picked up career win #100 on June 28, moving him into a tie for 10th best in team history. He pushed that total up two before season’s end.

Nohmi played the entire 2019 season as a reliever, marking the first year in his career that he did not record a single start. He appeared in a career-high 51 games, and although his ERA was above his career average, he became the third pitcher in team history to record a win in his 40s. He was also just the second pitcher in NPB history to make 50 or more appearances in a season in his 40s.

Though Nohmi set a few more records in 2020, they were mostly due to his age and not his performance. During spring training, he confided in a reporter that he had figured something new out that was going to revive his career at least for a while, but when Opening Day was delayed by three months, he says he lost the edge he was hoping to have gained. During the season, he was deactivated from the top squad roster in September and also given two weeks between mounds once (without being deactivated) in July. On October 21, the team notified Nohmi that they would not sign him back for 2021. Because he still felt capable of playing at a high level, he sought employment elsewhere. In his final appearance as a Tiger, on November 11, he allowed one hit and struck out a batter to earn his second career save. He ends his career with the Tigers with the fourth-highest strikeout total in team history.

On December 8, the Orix Buffaloes reached a player-coach contract with Nohmi for the 2021 season. He wears #26 for the Buffaloes.

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