The Cuban pitcher Liván Moinelo made a stunning return to the Nippon Professional Baseball (NPB) on Tuesday, delivering a quality start in the 16-2 victory of the SoftBank Hawks over the Chiba Lotte Marines.
The left-handed pitcher from Pinar completed six innings without allowing a single run, giving up only four hits, issuing no walks, and striking out five batters.
To achieve this, he needed 90 pitches, 54 of them strikes, in what was a demonstration of control and effectiveness from his first outing of the 2026 season.
The return carried a special weight: Moinelo had experienced discomfort in his left shoulder in May and had been unable to make his debut in the NPB throughout the first half of the year.
After a rehabilitation process in the minor leagues, manager Hiroki Kokubo confirmed that Moinelo was ready to return to the first team after the pitcher from Pinar del Río completed six innings, allowing one run and striking out six batters on July 31, with his fastball reaching 151 km/h.
The performance this Tuesday also marked a numerical milestone: it was the 50th start for Moinelo since he took on the role of starting pitcher in Japanese baseball, a round number that reflects the strength of his career in the NPB.
The Cuban arrives at this return with the title of best pitcher in the Pacific League in 2025, the season in which he was named MVP after recording 12 wins, a 1.46 ERA, and 172 strikeouts in 24 starts.
That recognition made him the first Cuban to receive that award and the first foreigner to achieve it since 2017.
A year earlier, in October 2024, he had already made history by winning the ERA title in the Pacific League with an impressive 1.88 ERA, becoming the first Latin American to achieve this, as well as receiving his first Gold Glove in Japan.
The start of the 2026 season was not without its turbulence: after participating in the World Baseball Classic with Cuba in March, rumors emerged that SoftBank was unable to locate him, but the National Sports Institute of Pinar del Río denied those rumors and confirmed that the pitcher was preparing to travel to Japan.
With his performance this Tuesday, Moinelo takes the first step towards regaining the level that established him as the best pitcher in the Pacific League, with the second half of the 2026 season ahead.
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