| Kenta Kurihara | |||||||||||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
 Kurihara with the Hiroshima Toyo Carp in 2009 | |||||||||||||||
| Chiba Lotte Marines – No. 77 | |||||||||||||||
| First baseman / Coach | |||||||||||||||
| Born: January 8, 1982 Tendō, Yamagata, Japan | |||||||||||||||
Bats: Right-handed Throws: Right | |||||||||||||||
| NPB debut | |||||||||||||||
| August 31, 2002, for the Hiroshima Toyo Carp | |||||||||||||||
| Last NPB appearance | |||||||||||||||
| Hiroshima Toyo Carp | |||||||||||||||
| NPB statistics (through 2013 season) | |||||||||||||||
| Batting average | .293 | ||||||||||||||
| Home runs | 153 | ||||||||||||||
| RBI | 586 | ||||||||||||||
| Teams | |||||||||||||||
| As player
As coach
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| Career highlights and awards | |||||||||||||||
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Medals
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Kenta Kurihara (栗原 健太, Kurihara Kenta, born January 8, 1982) is a Japanese former professional baseball infielder who played for the Hiroshima Toyo Carp and the Tohoku Rakuten Golden Eagles. He was last a batting coach for the Chunichi Dragons.
The Carp's main cleanup hitter during the early 2000s, Kurihara blossomed into one of the most feared power threats in the Central League. He played in the 2009 World Baseball Classic as an emergency replacement for Shuichi Murata, who suffered an injury in the second round of the tournament.