Overview
The lineup refers to the batting order of nine players (ten with the DH), constituting the team's offensive design. NPB traditionally places a high-OBP speedster at leadoff, the best overall hitter third, and the premier power hitter fourth. MLB's trend of batting the best hitter second has gradually influenced NPB as well. Lineup construction reflects a manager's philosophy, broadly divided between contact-oriented lineups emphasizing baserunning and power-oriented lineups built around extra-base hits. Dominant lineups often earn nicknames, such as Hanshin's Dynamite Lineup of 1985. Lineups are famously streaky, with hot and cold stretches that can define a team's season.
Building a Lineup: The Role of Each Spot
There is no single correct way to build a lineup, but NPB has long shared a traditional division of labour. The conventional thinking for each batting order slot runs as follows.
| Slot | Traditional role |
|---|---|
| 1st | A fast runner with a high on-base percentage. The table setter |
| 2nd | A situational hitter for bunts and productive outs. In recent years the "best hitter second" approach has also taken hold |
| 3rd-5th | The cleanup group. Extra-base power to drive in runners, and a knack for the big hit |
| 6th-7th | A second set of table setters. The starting point for a rally from the bottom of the order |
| 8th-9th | Defensive specialists, or the pitcher in the Central League. Charged with turning the order back over to the top |
In practice the order shifts constantly with form and with matchups against the opposing starter. Some managers keep a fixed order to instill a clear role in each player, while others hunt for the optimal arrangement day by day; lineup design is team strategy in itself.
What "the Lineup Is Connecting" Means
"The lineup is connecting" (dasen ga tsunagaru) is an idiom for a stretch in which several batters reach base or single in succession and the attack keeps producing runs. An offense that piles up singles and walks to load the bases and bring runners home, rather than leaning on one home run, is called a "connecting lineup." The opposite state - hits are coming but runs are not - is described as the lineup being "cut apart," or as the team not getting "that one more hit." There is also the saying that "the lineup is a fickle thing," meaning that hitting runs hot and cold and cannot be counted on. Pitching is relatively stable and can be planned around, whereas an offense swings widely with the opposing pitcher, the ballpark and the schedule, so the two are often contrasted in a phrase like "pitching carries you through the pennant race, the lineup decides the game."
Famous Nicknamed Lineups in NPB History
In NPB, powerful lineups earn nicknames that come to stand for an era in a club's history. The best-known examples are below.
| Nickname | Club | Era | Character |
|---|---|---|---|
| Dynamite Lineup | Hanshin | Around 1946-49 and later | A fearsome lineup led by Fumio Fujimura. The name was revived for the 1985 championship team |
| Itemae Lineup | Kintetsu | Around 1979 to 2004 | Coined spontaneously by fans around the club's first league title and used until the franchise folded |
| Machine Gun Lineup | Yokohama | Around 1997-99 | A rapid-fire attack of singles and doubles. The engine of the 1998 league and Japan Series titles |
| Big Bang Lineup | Nippon-Ham | Around 1998-2006 | A power-based lineup named through a fan contest held by the club in 1998 |
| Millennium Lineup | Yomiuri | 2000 | Named by manager Shigeo Nagashima. With Hideki Matsui among others the team hit 203 home runs and won the league and the Japan Series |
Each leans toward one of the two archetypes of lineup design - the connecting lineup (Machine Gun) or the destructive lineup (Big Bang, Millennium) - and the nickname captures that club's offensive style in a single phrase.
Frequently Asked Questions
Q. What is the Japanese word for a lineup?
It is dasen. The word pictures the row of batters as a line, and corresponds to "lineup" in English.
Q. Which slots make up the cleanup group?
The third, fourth and fifth spots - the heart of the order. The name comes from their job of "cleaning up" the bases by driving runners home.
Q. How does a starting lineup differ from the batting order?
The starting lineup (sutamen in Japanese) is the set of players in the game at first pitch, while dasen emphasises the sequence in which those batters hit, that is, the batting order itself. Even with the same nine players, changing the sequence is described as "reshuffling the lineup."