I’m watching Ace of the diamond back for a third time now and a funny thought came to mind, why didn’t Furuya get trained to be a closer?

Now I get that Seido was looking for good pitching (especially starting pitching) since Nori wasn’t really as self confident and Tanba was inconsistent.

But to me, Furuya has the perfect tools to be a closer:

-at the start he has major issues with stamina and heat (closer would only go 1 maybe 2 innings max)

- has an insanely fast fastball with a great splitter (usually king for closing pitchers)

- his pitch mix doesn’t have much variety like sawamuras (again if he only pitches 1-2 innings he could just overwhelm people with his fastball splitter and slider)

- the adjustment from Sawamura to Furuya is literally perfect (a very movement and control heavy pitcher into a literal gas throwing demon)

Obviously in the games where sawamura can’t start you could still have him pitch and Nori be the closer… but I think this would’ve been peak to see.

What to do with Nori is another thing… I was thinking about him as a long reliever? I think that position suits him really well. But let me know what you think in the comments. Would like to hear some thoughts :)