The Yomiuri Giants announced today that they terminated Rusty Ryal's contract and released him.  Ryal is expected to return to the US some time next week.

Ryal made headlines in September for leaving the dugout while a game was still in progress.  He was immediatelly demoted to Ni-gun on 9/4 and fined for his actions.

2011 Stats

Yomiuri Giants GM Hidetoshi Kiyotake informed the media today at Nagoya Dome that the team handed Rusty Ryal a fine for leaving the dugout and retiring to the locker room, without permission, toward end of a game against the Yakult Swallows on Saturday (9/3).

Said Kiyotake, "The fact is, he left the dugout for the locker rooms partway through the 9th inning.  It's a disgrace for a competitive professional athlete to do such a thing and we imposed a fine on the same day. ... That we issued a fine means that we still want to give him a chance, if he's willing to [accept and understand why]."

While an amount was not disclosed, it is though to be fairly significant, easily north of 100,000 yen.  The Giants' international affairs department also filed a protest with Ryal's agent.

This post will be updated throughout the day.

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Today's Ichi-gun day off was moved up a day to yesterday (due to rain).

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Today's intra-squad game (Ichi-gun):

The whites beat the reds, 6-4.

Seth Greisinger started for the reds and tossed 2 shutout inning.  He also hit the first batter of the game (Tetsuya Matsumoto).

Brian Bannister started for the whites and did not allow a run in 2 innings of work.  He also gave up 2 hits and was called for a balk in the first.

Dicky Gonzalez gave up three runs over 2 innings of work.

Jonathan Albaladejo tossed a perfect inning in relief -- he got Yoshiyuki Kamei and Ryuichi Kajimae to fly out to right and struck out Taishi Ota on a fastball up.

Carlos Torres tossed 2 shutout innings.

Hisayoshi Chono hit a ball off the fence in right in his first at bat and a double to center in his at bat in the 7th.

Michihiro Ogaswara and Yoshinobu Takashi each recorded 2 hits.

Today's practice game against the Kia Tigers (Ni-gun):

The Tigers won the game, 3-2.

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Michihiro Ogasawara took part in today's early morning walk.  Masumi Hoshino was also with him.

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Tatsunori Hara is hoping to decide on his regular season opening day starter by 3/14.  He's also hoping to have a better idea of his starting line-up set by 3/16.

Tetsuya Utsumi, Shun Tono, and Hirokazu Sawamura (1st round) have all been mentioned as possibilities.

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Rusty Ryal approached batting coaches Sadaaki Yoshimura and Akira Eto for help on hitting during the team's day off yesterday and ended up taking 300 swings of the bat.  Ryal is 0-for-5 over two intra-squad games.

This post will be updated throughout the day.

===== 2/7 @ 12:33am

Tetsuya Yamaguchi made an appearance as a BP pitcher and tossed 48 pitches while giving up 10 could-be hits, including a home run to Sakamoto.

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Daisuke Ochi also tossed BP today and gave up 8 could-be hits to Ryota Wakiya and Tetsuya Matsumoto.

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Yuya Kubo tossed 51 BP pitches today and gave up 13 could-be hits.

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Matsumoto faced Ochi and Kubo today during BP and worked on reading the strike zone.

===== 2/6 @ 9:44pm

Two Giants were injured today:

During fielding practice today (specifically, while working on bunt plays), Hisayoshi Chono took a throw from Jumpei Ono off his face.  Chono was taken to the hospital and diagnosed with a bruise on his left face.  The Giants expect him to be ok for practice tomorrow.

Yoshiyuki Kamei ran into Ken Kato while practicing rundowns and suffered a minor cervical spine sprain.  Kamei did not go to the hospital and instead returned to the team hotel for rest.  He is listed as day-to-day.

Both Chono and Kamei were scheduled to take BP against Sawamura today.

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Tatsunori Hara apparently had to order Rusty Ryal to return to the team hotel today.

Said Hara, "Ryal left early today. ... He's the type that wants to go through the entire training.  And so for the first time, I had to order him.  I told him he could leave after BP.  But then he said he wanted to do some running afterward.  So then I told him he to leave after he finished running.  He's the type that wants to do it all, so I had to order him!"

BTW: just in case this wasn't obvious, Hara was happy about Ryal's attitude.

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Sawamura made an appearance as a BP pitcher and tossed 55 pitches (including his slider and curve) against Hayato Sakamoto and Taishi Ota.  He also managed to break two of Sakamoto's bats using his fastbal.

===== 2/6 @ 1:17pm

The Giants received a number of items from Miyazaki prefecture and Miyazaki city today, including 20kg of ripe kumquat, 20kg of citrus tamurana, 10 boxes of strawberries, 100 broiled eels.  The Giants in turn donated 3M yen to in support of relief efforts for bird flu and the volcano.

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In addition to Hirokazu Sawamura (1st round), Tetsuya Utsumi and Shun Tono could also pitch in an intra-squad game on the 15th.

Utsumi and Tono both made appearances as BP pitchers yesterday -- Utsumi threw 53 pitches and gave up 6 could-be hits; Tono tossed 60 pitches and surrendered 2 could-be hits.

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Shinnosuke Abe caught 185 pitches thrown by 5 pitchers yesterday -- Dicky Gonzalez, Jonathan Albaladejo, Daisuke Ochi, Masumi Hoshino, and Jumpei Ono.  This in addition to all his other workouts, like taking grounders before entering the bullpen and taking BP immediately after.

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Adam Bright threw 43 pitches as a BP pitcher yesterday and gave up 2 could-be hits (including one that went over the fence).  Bright is drawing comparisons to former Hanshin Tiger Jeff Williams.

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Brian Bannister and Carlos Torres were amongst the foreign players that took part in a 30-minute English conversation course the Giants held yesterday.  57 people attended the session.

This post will be updated throughout the day.

=== 1/4 @ 1:50am

Taishi Ota is scheduled to rejoin the Ichi-gun roster beginning on the first day of the second block of spring camp (2/5).

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Tetsuya Utsumi threw his fourth bullpen session today in as many days under the watchful eye of Tatsunori Hara.

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Jonathan Albaladejo threw 44 pitches (including his off-speed pitches) in the bullpen today.

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Hara stood in the batter's box during Brian Bannister's bullpen session today.

Said Hara, "I wanted to see what he could throw.  When you stand in the batter's box yourself, it makes it easier to explain yourself, to say something good.  It puts you on the same page.  He showed good control."

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Hoshino tossed BP today.

=== 7:48pm

The six foreign Giants took part in a bean throwing ceremony today, as part of Setsubun.

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Seth Greisinger tossed his first bullpen session during spring camp today; he threw a total 51 pitches (fastballs and change-ups).  Greisinger plans on throwing at least three more sessions for a scheduled outing during an intra-squad game on the 17th.

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Seven Ni-gun Giants spent about an hour in the batting cages during early morning practice today (8:20am).  Genki Kawano was apparently one of them and took a slider that didn't slide off his back.  He later told reporters that he was fine.

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Despite all the hard training (there was an evening practice session on the first day of camp and yesterday's session lasted close to 7 hours), Takanori Hoshi told reporters today that he has managed to gain weight since the start of camp (from 81kg to 82kg).

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Masumi Hoshino tossed 136 pitches in the bullpen yesterday.  It was his second bullpen session in as many days (he threw 100 the day before).  The Giants are currently thinking of Hoshino as a potential starter.

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General pitching coach Kazuhisa Kawaguchi advised Hirokazu Sawamura (1st round) to slow down and take things easy yesterday.  He also old Sawamura that it wasn't the number of pitches he threw, but rather the quality of the pitches he threw.

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Rusty Ryal and Yoshiyuki Kamei took grounders at third during situational fielding practice yesterday.  And Hayato Sakamoto was at short and Ryota Wakiya at second.  The session lasted about an hour and 15 minutes.  Kamei also spent about 40 minutes working on back-handing the ball.

5:49pm JST

According to Sanspo, the total contract is worth 100M yen (includes a signing bonus).

10:29am JST

The media learned on Wednesday that the Yomiuri Giants signed 27-year-old INF Rusty Ryal to a 1-year deal worth 80M yen.  He was also assigned the number 33.  An announcement of a deal could be made some time today.

Ryal has spent his entire career in the Arizona Diamondback's organization, beginning in 2005 when he was drafted in the 14th round.  Ryal has played a lot of third and second, but has also played left, short, and first.

Ryal's father, Mark, spent 2 seasons (1991 - 1992) in the NPB with the Chunichi Dragons and had a slash line of .286/.322/.484.  If Ryal makes the Ichi-gun roster, they'll become just the 2nd father-son combo that has played in the NPB.  The other: Marty Keough (1968; Nankai) and Matt Keough (1987 - 1990; Hanshin)

Career and 2010 Stats

The Yomiuri Giants are currently looking into 27-year-old INF Rusty Ryal.  The Giants are interested in Ryal because he has some pop and can play 1B, 2B, 3B and the outfield.  An MLB.com article mentions that the Diamondbacks are "in the process of finalizing a deal to sell the rights of Rusty Ryal to a Japanese League team."

The Giants could announce a deal sometime next week.

Ryal was drafted by the Arizona Diamondbacks in 2005, made his way up through the minor league system, and made his MLB debut on 8/10/2009.

2010 Season and Career Stats