Kazuo Fukumori

Fukumori was unable to advance to the National High School Baseball Championship during his high school years, losing in the prefectural final for three consecutive years. He was drafted by the Yokohama BayStars in the third round of the 1994 draft, and marked his first win against the Chunichi Dragons on July 3, 1997. He pitched as a fifth and sixth-string starter for the BayStars rotation during his early career, with a career-high 9 wins in 1999. He was traded to the Osaka Kintetsu Buffaloes in 2004 after pitching in a career-high 62 games in 2003 with a 4.50 ERA as a reliever in his final year with the BayStars. He became the closer for the Buffaloes midway through 2004, and ended the year with 2 wins and 10 saves with a 5.18 ERA. However, the Buffaloes team was disbanded during the off-season, and Fukumori was handed over to the newly created Tohoku Rakuten Golden Eagles in a distri…