By Jim Allen, KYODO NEWS - Oct 30, 2017 - 17:57 | Sports, All

Tomoyuki Sugano's sparkling season with the Yomiuri Giants received some added luster on Monday when he was named the recipient of the Eiji Sawamura Award as Japan's most impressive starting pitcher.

"It's moving to receive this award," the 28-year-old Sugano said.

Five former ace pitchers selected Sugano over Seibu Lions lefty Yusei Kikuchi, whose bid received some support from a committee member willing to honor two pitchers for the first time since 2003.

"We come here looking for the best ace pitcher, the one best pitcher, but we had two candidates and there was some thought given to two," said committee chairman Tsuneo Horiuchi. "Indeed, I was one of those double awardees. But in the end we decided on the one best pitcher, and he is Sugano."

Pitchers in the Central and Pacific leagues are evaluated on seven standards: 25 games, 10 complete games, 15 wins, a .600 winning percentage, 200 innings, and a 2.50 ERA.

Sugano and Kikuchi each met the standards except for 10 complete games and 200 innings, which no pitchers in Nippon Professional Baseball managed this year. Sugano, however, led both leagues with 17 wins, a .773 winning percentage and a 1.59 ERA.

"I failed only to reach 200 innings and 10 complete games," Sugano said. "I want to work hard to achieve my goal of clearing every standard."

Masaji Hiramatsu, who this year was inducted into the Japanese Baseball Hall of Fame, felt Kikuchi was worthy of being named alongside Sugano.

"There was very little separating them," Hiramatsu said. "But if it is one, Sugano was a little more reliable and the most deserving winner."

Although the two leagues differ somewhat in quality with the PL now clearly stronger than the CL, only one selector mentioned a difference between the leagues.

"Because Kikuchi pitches in the Pacific League, which has a designated hitter, there is more offense. For him to compile the numbers he did in that league is worth consideration," former PL pitcher Hisashi Yamada said.

Another matter for consideration, starting next season, will be quality starts -- although modified to suit Japanese tastes.

The quality start (pitching six innings or more while allowing three earned runs or less) was mentioned as a possible Sawamura Award criteria a year ago. From next year, a modified version, that increases the number of innings needed from six to seven, will be used to evaluate pitchers.

Not surprisingly, Sugano led NPB with 76 percent of his starts qualifying as seven-inning quality starts. Kikuchi's 73.1 percent was second.