Ayumu Ishikawa

Ayumu Ishikawa (石川 歩, Ishikawa Ayumu, born April 11, 1988) is a Japanese professional baseball pitcher for the Chiba Lotte Marines in Japan's Nippon Professional Baseball.

Lotte manager Tsutomu Ito selected the winning card in the subsequent lottery, and Ishikawa joined the Marines for the 2014 season.

In 2014, Ishikawa began his rookie campaign in the Lotte starting rotation and made an immediate impact, throwing quality starts in 4 of his first 5 games (missing the 5th by just one out) and finishing his first professional month with 3 wins and a 1.19 ERA.

In 2015, Ishikawa continued to shine, following up his impressive rookie season with another year with double-digit wins (12), becoming the first Lotte pitcher in 64 years to record back-to-back double digit win seasons to start his career.

[4] That win total would have been even higher were it not for extremely poor run support throughout the summer months, including being on the losing end of shutout losses three times despite throwing a quality start in all three games.