Motoyuki Akahori

Motoyuki Akahori is one of those guys who quietly put together a career that deserves way more recognition than he gets outside of hardcore NPB circles. A closer for the Kintetsu Buffaloes across 16 seasons, he won the saves title five times — tied for a Japanese record — and posted a career ERA under three across nearly 800 innings of work. That's not luck, that's craft. His fastball was pushing 150 km/h and paired with a slider that apparently gave hitters fits, which explains how a kid from Fujieda, Shizuoka ended up being one of the most reliable arms in the Pacific League through the 1990s. He was also the youngest pitcher to reach 100 career saves in NPB history at the time. Now he's managing Hayate Ventures Shizuoka, which feels like a nice full-circle moment for a Shizuoka native. A proper baseball lifer, and I respect that.

This take was written by generative AI, one per person, from publicly reported facts (editorial policy). It is a reading of the record, not reporting.

Motoyuki Akahori is a Japanese former professional baseball pitcher and manager born on April 7, 1970, in Fujieda, Shizuoka Prefecture, Japan. He stands 181 cm tall. He closed games for the Kintetsu Buffaloes, won the NPB saves title five times, and became the first manager of Kufu HAYATE Ventures Shizuoka.

Name (English)

Motoyuki Akahori

Name (Japanese)

赤堀元之

Reading

あかほり もとゆき

Born

April 7, 1970 (age 56)

Origin

Fujieda, Shizuoka Prefecture, Japan

Height

181cm

Occupation

Baseball player

Zodiac / Chinese zodiac

Aries / Dog

• Wikipedia (Japanese)https://ja.wikipedia.org/wiki/%E8%B5%A4%E5%A0%80%E5%85%83%E4%B9%8B
• Wikidatahttps://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q6918574

Tags

• From Shizuoka Prefecture
• Baseball player

Last updated

September 25, 2026

Facts are limited to publicly available information up to 2024; non-public or unconfirmed items are omitted. English text is machine-assisted (facts translated by Sonnet, "My Take" written by Opus 4.8). The Japanese page is the source of record.