Osaka Kintetsu Buffaloes times. Bryant also struck out countless times, and holds the top four spots on the single-season strikeout records in Nippon Professional Baseball. Pitcher Hideo Nomo starred for the Buffaloes from 1990–1994 before he exercised a loophole in his contract and "retired," allowing him to sign with MLB's Los Angeles Dodgers. The subsequent wave of players moving to Major League Baseball has become a fixture of Japanese professional baseball. Tuffy Rhodes played for the Buffaoes for eight seasons from 1996–2003, hitting 288 home runs over that span. In the season, he hit his 55th homer to tie Sadaharu Oh's Japanese League
Toshiya Sugiuchi second round, throwing three shutout innings and being credited with a save. He was also used as a left-handed specialist in the tournament finals against South Korea. On April 5, in his first start of the regular season against the Orix Buffaloes, Sugiuchi struck out five over 7⅔ innings to bring his career strikeout total to 1003. He was the fourth-fastest pitcher in NPB history to amass 1000 career strikeouts (following Hideo Nomo, Kazuhisa Ishii and Yutaka Enatsu), doing so in 979⅓ innings. He became the 318th pitcher in Japanese professional baseball to amass 1000 career innings in a start