Nippon Professional Baseball teams are set to open the race for the Central and Pacific league pennants today.
The Yomiuri Giants take aim at their first CL championship in four years and send Tomoyuki Sugano to start Opening Day against the Hanshin Tigers.
Giants hurlers worked out at Tokyo Dome on Wednesday, and Sugano tossed 54 pitches from the mound instead of throwing in the bullpen. "My time was well-spent today," Sugano said. "And I think the switch will go on naturally on Opening Day."
Before his "bullpen session" from the mound, the four-time Opening Day starter warmed up with workouts that included long toss. As position players practiced at Yomiuri's facility in Kawasaki to get used to outdoor night games, Sugano stood out at the dome. The 28-year-old simulated each Hanshin batter with every pitch he made.
"There's no doubt they will fill the lineup with a lot of lefties," Sugano said.
It's not that the right-hander has a problem with left-handed batters. While righties hit .208 off him last year, he held lefties to .183 batting average against.
Even so, he focused and envisioned throwing to tough Tigers lefty thumpers, such as Yoshio Itoi and Kosuke Fukudome, and carefully delivering different pitches, including sliders inside and sinkers away.
His heater is his bread and butter, and his final practice toss, pitch No. 54, was an inside fastball that he imagined would be against a lefty.
"I have to be able to get swings and misses or fouls against batters who are sitting on the fastball," he said.
Sugano posted a 1.29 ERA in 14 innings over three exhibition games. Pitching coach Masaki Saito places a huge trust on the ace and said, "There's nothing to tell him."
The Tigers will start Randy Messenger for the fifth time on Opening Day, and for the fourth consecutive year. Against the Giants last season, he posted good results, going 2-0 with an ERA of 1.23 in three games.
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