Masahiro Tanaka Passes Hiroki Kuroda With 204th Career Win as Giants Rout Dragons

Masahiro Tanaka moved past Hiroki Kuroda on the all-time list for combined NPB and MLB victories Saturday, throwing seven innings of one-run baseball as the Yomiuri Giants routed the Chunichi Dragons 14-1 at Tokyo Dome.

The 37-year-old right-hander allowed four hits, walked two and struck out three across 102 pitches to earn his fourth victory of the 2026 season. It was career win No. 204 between Japan and the United States, breaking his tie with former Hiroshima Carp, Los Angeles Dodgers and New York Yankees pitcher Kuroda at 203.

Tanaka ends four-and-a-half-month wait

The milestone had taken longer than Tanaka expected. His previous victory came against the Hanshin Tigers on May 1, leaving him without a win for more than four months despite entering Saturday already level with Kuroda.

Chunichi produced its only run in the third inning, when Yuki Fukunaga doubled home a runner to cut Yomiuri’s early lead to 2-1. Tanaka did not allow another runner to reach second base after that inning.

His fastball reached 146 km/h, while a mix of sliders, changeups, two-seamers and splitters kept the Dragons from putting together sustained traffic. The outing was Tanaka’s third high-quality start of the season, defined in Japan as at least seven innings with two or fewer earned runs.

Giants offense turns game into rout

Yomiuri broke the game open behind Tanaka with six runs in the fourth inning. Naoki Yoshikawa, Yuto Izuguchi and Bobby Dalbec delivered consecutive run-scoring hits before Takumi Oshiro added a sacrifice fly and Hayato Sakamoto drove in another run.

The Giants added two more in the fifth and four in the sixth, finishing with 15 hits and a season-high 14 runs. Shunsuke Sasaki hit his 10th home run, while Oshiro drove in four and Izuguchi finished with three hits, three RBIs and three runs scored.

The victory moved Yomiuri to 72-59-2 and kept the Giants firmly in the Central League race late in the regular season.

Only Yu Darvish remains ahead

Tanaka’s 204 combined victories put him alone in second place among Japanese pitchers across NPB and MLB. Yu Darvish remains ahead with 208.

Tanaka won 78 games during seven seasons with the New York Yankees from 2014 through 2020. The rest of his victories have come in Japan with the Tohoku Rakuten Golden Eagles and Yomiuri Giants.

The milestone also carries a personal connection. Kuroda was Tanaka’s Yankees teammate during Tanaka’s first MLB season in 2014. After Tanaka reached 203 wins in May, Kuroda had encouraged him to move past the mark quickly. Instead, the wait lasted until September.

Tanaka finally did it with one of his strongest outings of the season, in a game that also mattered to a Giants club still chasing the Central League lead.