Masahiro Tanaka has declined his opt out and will remain with the Rakuten Eagles for the 2022 season, the club announced Friday.
Tanaka was supposed to lead the Eagles to the promised land for the first time since he led them to the Japan Series championship as Pacific League MVP in 2013.
I wrote up a scouting report on his 2021 season: Where’s Masa?
But eight years older, against tougher and more determined competition and with abysmal run support, he produced a 4-9 season with a 3.01 ERA for the third-place Eagles and did not appear in either of their two postseason losses.
Here he is pitching on Oct. 25 against the PL champion Orix Buffaloes, when he allowed one earned run over eight innings and struck out eight.
He did pitch, not that well, for Japan in the Olympics, but did get a gold medal out of it, although that was not the prize he was looking for 10 years after the Tohoku region was devastated by an earthquake and a tsunami.
