Matsuzaka flops in long-awaited Hawks debut

SENDAI – Daisuke Matsuzaka auditioned for a spot in the Fukuoka SoftBank Hawks’ postseason but flubbed his lines in 7-0 loss to the Tohoku Rakuten Golden Eagles on Sunday.

Pitching in a first-team game in Japan for the first time since 2006, the former major leaguer allowed five runs, two earned, in one inning in the Hawks’ regular season finale. Matsuzaka allowed three hits, walked two, hit two and struck out two.

“There’s nothing to do but accept these results and the quality of my pitching and move forward,” said Matsuzaka, whose entry into the game in the bottom of the eighth inning drew a huge cheer from the crowd of 25,222 at Kobo Miyagi Stadium.

“These aren’t the results I was looking for but I’m glad I was able to pitch.”

After issuing a leadoff walk, Matsuzaka loaded the bases on two pitches, each one striking a batter.

His former Seibu Lions teammate Kazuo Matsui came in as a pinch hitter and was hit on the foot with a fastball.

“He must have been nervous,” Matsui said. “Regardless of the outcome, being on the same field and playing against him was encouraging, even for me.”

Rookie Rakuten shortstop Eigoro Mogi, who was five years old when Matsuzaka turned pro out of high school in 1999, and followed the Lions as a boy, singled in a run against Matsuzaka.

“Because he’s a player I used to watch on TV and at the ballpark, it felt surreal,” Mogi said.

The 36-year-old Matsuzaka, who spent six big league seasons with the Boston Red Sox and two with the New York Mets, returned to Nippon Professional Baseball after the 2014 season, but had struggled with fitness issues and underwent shoulder surgery in August 2015.

Matsuzaka’s last top-flight game in Japan had been on Oct. 7, 2006, when he pitched a shutout for the Lions in the first-stage opener of the Pacific League playoffs against the Hawks.

He went 33-15 over his first two major league seasons, but struggled after that and had Tommy John ligament reconstruction surgery on his right elbow in 2011. In 2015, Matsuzaka signed a three-year deal to return to NPB with the Hawks.

“As for next season, I am going to rebuild, starting from square one,” he said.

Rick van den Hurk (7-3) started for SoftBank and allowed two runs in five innings to take the loss, while Takahiro Norimoto (11-11) threw six innings to pick up the win for the Eagles, who have two games left on their schedule.