There was the game of Fukuoka Softbank Hawks vs Tohoku Rakuten Eagles at Kobo Stadium Miyagi, in October 2. This was the last game for the Hawks in 2016 season. Starting pitcher was Rick Van den Hurk of the Hawks and Takahiro Norimoto of the Eagles. In the bottom of 3rd inning, Kazuya Fujita made a RBI single from Van den Hurk, the Eagles was the first to score. And in the bottom of 5th inning, Motohiro shima of the eagles made a home run.
In the bottom of 8th inning, Daisuke Matsuzaka of the Hawks went to the mound. Matsuzaka’s outing was since 2014 in Major League Baseball, and was since 2006 in Japan. However, he walked a batter and gave hit by a pitch 4 times in a row, and was made a RBI hit by Eigoro Mogi and Ginji. So he allowed 5 earned runs in 1 inning, he got off the mound. After all the Eagles won the game that was the score of 7-0.
Daisuke Matsuzaka played in the New York Mets on 2014 season, and he became a free agent player in the off season. So he backed to japan and transfered to Hawks. He signed the contract with Hawks of 3 years and his salary was 1.2 billion yen. He pitched in the exhibition game of 2015, but he was leaving with right shoulder fatigue. So he had surgery the right shoulder and underwent a constant physical rehabilitation. In 2016 season, he played in the minor league and pitched in 12 games. His stats is 1 win and 4 loses, 3.82 ERA.
Originally, the team didn’t know what to do with Daisuke Matsuzaka. The manager and Hawks’s front office didn’t think the aquisition of Matsuzaka, but a word from Masayoshi Son of the team owner settled the contract with Matsuzaka. So the manager and corch treated Matsuzaka with utmost care. In other words, Matsuzaka has been a touchy player for the team and the team rested his practice along the his declaration. As a result, he is fat than when he joined in the Hawks.
In addition, the decline of Matsuzaka’s ball speed was also revealed. Previously his average ball speed was 91.8mph（147.7km/h）and his best ball was 97mph（156km/h）. But his best ball speed was 91.8mph now. In the game of October 2, his best ball speed was 89.5mph（144km/h）. Because the influence of shoulder surgery, his velocity of pitching has fallen.
What does the Hawks do with Matsuzaka? Because his pitching of this time was not good so it is not possible to make throw him in the Climax series. If that is the case, he will play in the minor league in the next year again. In other words he will also get a salary of 400 million yen without play in the first team next year. For the Hawks, he is a “bad debt” now.
This youtube’s video is the game of Boston Redsox vs Kansas City Royals in April 5 2007. This was the debut game for Matsuzaka in MLB, he pitched 7 innings with 10 strikeouts and got a first win. The Dice-K’s fans hope to once again look at this pitching.
