Kazuki Sugiyama‘s temper tantrum on Saturday broke not only his own hand, but forced the SoftBank Hawks’ hand in their stalemated negotiations with the guy Sugiyama replaced as closer last season, the forever-troubled Roberto Osuna.
Sugiyama broke his left hand when punching the bench in frustration at the Fighters’ ballpark in an eerie SoftBank flashback. In 2004, left-handed starter Toshiya Sugiuchi flew into a rage and sparred with the plastic bench at Fukuoka Dome.
The cost of his getting that out of his system was that the Hawks front office reopened negotiations with Osuna, who is reportedly on a contract that specifies he be used as a closer. After Osuna had more difficulty with batters this spring than he did with his girlfriend in 2018, when he was arrested for domestic assault, he declined to break camp with the major league club in the role the Hawks offered.
Tuesday, the front office reported it had reached an agreement with Osuna and his agent and the pitcher was reactivated.
The Hawks can only hope Sugiyama bounces back in the same way from his control lapse as Sugiuchi did. The season following his bench dustup, Sugiuchi won both the Pacific League MVP and the Sawamura awards.
Tuesday’s games:
Fighters 5, Marines 1: Lotte snapped a 29-inning home scoreless streak to tie it 1-1 in the bottom of the second on Ryusei Terachi‘s second home run, and then ran off seven more, with Fighters starter Kota Tatsu going eight innings for his season’s first win. Tatsuki Mizuno‘s two-out two-run double broke the tie, Kota Yazawa hit a solo homer, Nippon Ham’s 27th, before the visitors scored without a hit in the ninth.
Giants 4, Tigers 3: Yomiuri gave Takahiro Norimoto a two-run second-inning lead when Takumi Oshiro singled in Bobby Dalbec and Riku Masuda doubled home Trey Cabbage. Norimoto threw six scoreless innings but failed to get his first career Central League win when the bullpen coughed up three seventh-inning runs with Nozomu Takatera‘s two-run pinch-hit double putting the Tigers in front. Oshiro, who went 3-for-4, homered to tie it in the eighth off Dauri Moreta, to end starting pitcher Hiroto Saiki‘s bid for his eighth-straight winning decision against the Giants. Yomiuri’s Taisei Ota worked a 1-2-3 eighth against the top half of the Tigers order in the eighth, and Hayato Sakamoto started the winning rally with a ninth-inning single against Tigers closer Suguru Iwazaki. Go Matsumoto singled in the go-ahead run, and Raidel Martinez recorded his fourth save.
Eagles 3, Hawks 2: Carter Stewart Jr allowed three runs, just two earned, on five hits and six walks over 4-2/3 innings. Rakuten’s Kosei Shoji retired the first nine Hawks, but surrendered two runs on a leadoff walk and three no-out singles. Ryosuke Tatsumi doubled in the tying run off Stewart to make it 2-2, and Yoshiaki Watanabe pushed across the tying run with a smoking two-out-single off Stewart’s glove.
Swallows 5, BayStars 3, 5 innings rain: On a rainy night at muddy Botchan Stadium in Matsuyama, Yakult control master Yasuhiro Ogawa walked the bases loaded before having the mound repaired and ending the inning by striking out rookie Asahi Miyashita. The Swallows scored on a walk, a single and a Toshiro Miyazaki throwing error in the first with Domingo Santana‘s head-first slide scooping up so much dirt at home that the entire batter’s circle had to be repaired. While the mound and home plate were being worked on, DeNA starting pitcher Yu Takeda cleaned his spikes in the dugout since the spike scraper behind the mound had become completely caked with mud.
Cooper Hummel‘s one-out walk triggered a three-run fifth-inning BayStars rally with Miyazaki, Ryuki Watarai and Miyashita each singling in a run with one out, the last two off former closer Kazuto Taguchi, who got the win after six of the first seven Swallows’ batters hit safely in the bottom of the fifth.
Buffaloes 5, Lions 1: Orix took a four-run third-inning lead after Taishi Hirooka and Kenya Wakatsuki‘s back-to-back no-out singles. The next two batters reached on throwing errors with each one bringing home run. Ryoma Nishikawa capped the rally with a two-run single and Orix starter Ryuhei Sotani allowed a run over five innings.
Dragons 6, Carp 2: Chunichi loaded the bases with no outs in the first against Hiroshima’s Masato Morishita, who probably wished his name was Shota. Jason Vosler‘s sac fly opened the scoring. Asahi Hanada doubled in one, and Miguel Sano capped the rally with a two-run single. Vosler doubled with a man on in the fifth before he and Kaito Muramatsu scored on singles by Hanada and Shuhei Takahashi. Dragons starter Yumeto Kanemaru allowed two runs on seven hits over 7-1/3 innings, striking out nine and walking none.
