YOKOHAMA (Kyodo) -- Perhaps for the first time since he left Japan to try his hand at Major League Baseball in 2020, Yoshitomo Tsutsugo truly looked at home Sunday, homering and driving in four runs to help the DeNA BayStars clinch the Japan Series championship.

After four-plus years of trying to compete in MLB, Tsutsugo said he has faced the same problem in Japan that he had in the United States, adjusting to pitchers' timing.

Against a pitcher who upgraded his game in the United States, SoftBank Hawks right-hander Kohei Arihara, Tsutsugo was all over a hanging 2-1 changeup from the former Texas Ranger, blasting it well over the wall to the right of the hitters' background in center for his first home run of the series and a 1-0 lead.

"When he returned to Yokohama, he said he came back in order to help us win the Japan Series," manager Daisuke Miura said of the left-handed-hitting slugger.

"That home run showed he was as good as his word."

Tsutsugo, who went to the Tampa Bay Rays in 2020, struggled to time the pitchers overseas, got limited playing time and, before two years were out, he was toiling in the minor leagues with the Los Angeles Dodgers.

"I went to the U.S. hoping to stay longer," Tsutsugo said prior to the series' start, as he rattled off his difficulties with timing and injuries, although he did find some success in the second half of the 2021 season with the Pittsburgh Pirates.

(By Jim Allen)

"I made up my mind that if I couldn't make an MLB Opening Day roster, I would come back. It has not been an easy adjustment coming back, though. I haven't really got my timing back."

One would not know it from Game 6 at Yokohama Stadium. In his fourth at-bat, his three-run double keyed DeNA's seven-run fifth, all but icing the BayStars' first Japan Series title since 1998.

Asked about the most valuable lessons he learned in American baseball, the 32-year-old steered away from baseball on the field and spoke of his time in the minor leagues, where he played 149 games.

"From the standpoint of life experience, it was extremely valuable," he said. "Traveling on buses was a killer. I had some that lasted as long as 14 hours."

"I was the same as a little kid, saying, 'We're not there yet?' But it was an experience we all endured together, especially the Latin American players, who also had language difficulties. I'm still in touch with a lot of them, in English."

"It was a really hard existence one can't experience inside Japanese pro baseball."