Ideally, the preseason is about good news, baseball being played, players fine-tuning their games for the regular season, guys coming back from injury setback. But the flip side is players getting hurt before the start of the season.
The Chunichi Dragons looking to have left-handed ace Yudai Ono, the 2019 Sawamura Award winner, back after his 2023 season ended in surgery after one game, but went into camp without their top draft pick from 2023, Asia University pitcher Sho Kusaka, who felt discomfort in January and is now having or has already had Tommy John surgery.
The Yakult Swallows’ top pick from 2019, Yasunobu Okugawa, was recommended for Tommy John two years ago, but declined to go that route, and has been trying to work his way back to shape without going under the knife.
Back in major league spring training for the first time in two years, Okugawa threw two innings in a practice game last Sunday, but six days later felt discomfort while playing catch and has been sidelined. Manager Shingo Takatsu blamed it on the epidemic that has cursed Japanese baseball since 2020, when “lack of conditioning” began to be used as the catch all for every player’s ills , and said there is no timetable for Okugawa’s return.
I’m not going to say it’s the pitcher’s fault for not having the procedure the team wanted him to have, because there are no guarantees, and it’s his body. But it is disappointing.
The Lotte Marines wrapped up their camp Sunday only for their manager, former MLB pitcher Masato Yoshii to pull an MLB on them and say, “We’re in spring training until our final preseason game.”
Lotte suffered a pair of pitcher injuries to 32-year-old right-hander Daiki Tojo, who has been eying a spot in the rotation after a career in middle relief, suffered an oblique muscle injury, while 26-year-old right-hander Fumiya Motomae broke his left arm. But that didn’t keep Yoshii from saying the team was otherwise in good condition in its final month before Opening Day.
New Rakuten Eagles manager Toshiaki Imae wrapped up his first spring camp by saying, “What I learned is that we displayed a lot of our trouble areas, and could recognize them. The coaching staff, and the players, too, have a lot of work to do going forward.”
