Excellent Performance of Cuban Despaigne at Nippon Professional Baseball League

GRANMA, Cuba, Oct 5 (acn) Cuban baseball player Alfredo Despaigne hit a double in the playoffs of the Nippon Professional Baseball League (NPB) on his return to action with the Chiba Lotte Marines, after recovering from an injured wrist.

According to the Japanese Baseball Web site, Despaigne, cleanup hitter of the Marines, batted 1 for 4 in the 4-2 win of his team over the Tohoku Rakuten Golden Eagles, in the second game of the first phase of the Pacific circuit play off.
With that win, achieved in the presence of some 15,026 spectators at the QVC Marine Field, the Marines matched the series 1-1 in the battle to qualify for the finals of the circuit against the Hokkaido Nippon-Ham Fighters.
The first game was a 7-0 win for the Eagles with great performance of pitcher Takahiro Norimoto, who allowed only five hits.
An NPB debutant in 2014, Despaigne has 27 doubles in the current season and a batting average (BA) of .282, the highest for a Latino player in the Pacific circuit.
The Caribbean athlete, who has participated in 11 Cuban National Baseball Series with the Granma team, is one of the main contenders for the NPB Latino of the Year Award, along with Venezuelans Jose Lopez (Yokohama DeNA Bay Stars) and Ernesto Mejia (Saitama Seibu Lions).
His chances of success decreased at the end of the regular season because of an injury suffered on September 9th, which prevented him from participating in several matches.
After recovery, Despaigne returned to action on September 24th against the Orix Buffaloes, but three days later felt a pain again in the same wrist, in the game against the Fukuoka SoftBank Hawks.
This is Despaigne´s best campaign in the Japanese baseball as he totals 92 RBIs, 80 runs scored and 139 hits, including 24 homers, personal best in NPB.
The biggest amount of homers of the Cuban slugger in Japan, before starting this season, was 18, achieved in the previous campaign and tied last August 12 against the SoftBank Hawks.
In his first season in that country he had BA of .311 with 12 homers and 33 RBIs in 45 games.
In 2015, he participated in 103 games, with 18 home runs, but a poor BA of .258.
Before signing with the Chiba Lotte Marines, he hit 232 homers in Cuba.
His total of 36, achieved in 2012, is the record for a regular season in the Caribbean nation.