is a former left fielder and designated hitter for the Fukuoka SoftBank Hawks.
He played in the 1996 Atlanta and 2000 Sydney Olympics as well as the 2006 World Baseball Classic, hitting cleanup in and .
Early life and amateur career
Matsunaka was born in Yatsushiro, Kumamoto, and attended the local Yatsushiro First High School (currently Shugakukan High School). He joined Nippon Steel Corporation Kimitsu Works, a team in the Japanese industrial leagues, upon graduating high school in .
In 1996, 22-year-old Matsunaka, then still a first baseman for Nippon Steel-Kimitsu, gathered national attention when he hit a game-tying grand slam in the finals of the 1996 Atlanta Olympics against Cuba as a member of the Japanese national team. He was picked in the second round of the 1996 amateur draft by the Fukuoka Daiei Hawks.
Professional career
Early years: 1997–1999
Matsunaka made his debut at the ichigun (Japanese equivalent of "major league") level in , his rookie season, as the starting first baseman and No. 7 hitter in a regular season game against the Seibu Lions on May 31. His first home run came more than a year later against Lions right-hander Fumiya Nishiguchi on September 5 .
Matsunaka became the Hawks' starting first baseman in with the departure of Luis Lopez, hitting .268 with 23 home runs and 71 RBI and leading them to their first championship in 35 years as they won the league title as well as that year's Japan Series in five games over the Chunichi Dragons. His 23 homers were second to only Hiroki Kokubo on the Hawks.
2000–2002
Matsunaka had a breakout year in , hitting .312 with 33 homers and 106 RBI and winning the Pacific League Most Valuable Player award for the first time in his career. However, while the Hawks won the league title and reached the Japan Series for the second straight year, they blew a commanding 2-0 lead to the Yomiuri Giants and lost in six games. Matsunaka was a factor in this loss, going just 1-for-20 with one home run in the series.
Matsunaka put up his second consecutive .300-30-100 season the following season , hitting .334 with 36 home runs and 122 RBI. The Hawks had a particularly potent lineup that year, with Matsunaka, Kokubo (44), catcher Kenji Johjima (31), and second baseman Tadahito Iguchi (30) all hitting 30 or more home runs. It marked the first time four players on the same team had ever hit 30 or more homers in the Pacific League, and the four were dubbed the "30-Homer Quartet". However, while the Hawks broke a franchise record by hitting 203 home runs as a team, they finished second to the Osaka Kintetsu Buffaloes in the pennant race, missing their third straight league title.
Matsunaka struggled to adjust to the new strike zone that the NPB had decided to implement in the season, hitting a career-low .260 with 28 home runs. He hit his 100th career home run on May 3 off left-hander Itsuki Shoda in a game against the Nippon Ham Fighters.
2003
In , Matsunaka bounced back from a disappointing previous year and hit .324 with 30 home runs and 123 RBI in the regular season, overtaking his teammate Johjima in RBI in the last game of the season to lead the league in that category for the first time. He led the Hawks to another pennant win and their first Japan Series championship in four years over the Hanshin Tigers. Despite the absence of Kokubo, their longtime cleanup hitter, the Hawks collectively hit .297 (the highest team batting average in NPB history), with four hitters putting up 100 or more RBI (the "100-RBI Quartet").
2004
The season was the finest of Matsunaka's eight-year professional career. He hit .358 with 44 home runs and 120 RBI, becoming the first player in Japanese professional baseball since Hiromitsu Ochiai (then of the Lotte Orions) in to lead the league in batting average, home runs and RBI in the same season (he was tied with Fernando Seguignol in home runs) and thus win Triple Crown honors. Making the feat even more impressive was that Matsunaka also led the league in hits, on-base percentage, runs scored and total bases, becoming just the second player in NPB history to lead the league in the aforementioned seven categories.
Following the season, Matsunaka was rewarded with the second MVP award of his career as well as the Best Nine and Golden Glove awards. However, while he led his team to the playoffs, the Hawks fell in five games to the Lions due in large part to an abysmal showing by Matsunaka, who went just 2-for-16 in five games in the series.