Korey Mallien

USA TODAY NETWORK-Wisconsin

Erik Cordier is forever done playing professional baseball in Japan after experiencing a disappointing season that was cut short by injury.

The Door County native and hard-throwing relief pitcher was unable to finish his first season with the Orix Buffaloes of the Nippon Professional Baseball league because of a nagging lower abdominal injury that ultimately required surgery.

Cordier left the team Sept. 6 and returned to the United States, where he’s back in De Pere rehabbing and hoping to get another chance to pitch for a Major League Baseball organization. Cordier, 30, had two short major league stints during his 12-year career before signing a lucrative deal last winter to play in Japan.

“I can’t say I regret going to Japan,” said Cordier. “I took some chances. Financially, it helped me and my wife Ashley quite a bit.

“I definitely wish it would have gone better. But even if it had, I probably wouldn’t go back to Japan anyway. It wasn’t what I expected.”

Cordier had hoped to make a splash overseas, but that never transpired. He appeared in only 13 games and pitched a total of 12 1/ 3 innings for the Buffaloes. He finished with two saves and was 0-2 with a 7.30 earned run average. He had 14 strikeouts, issued 15 walks, and allowed 11 runs and 11 hits, including two home runs.

Cordier admits his statistics were “bad,” but said he never got comfortable in the foreign environment and the abdominal injury prevented him from pitching at a more respectable level.

“I had trouble adjusting to the Japanese way of baseball,” said Cordier. “It’s definitely a different game over there. Their throwing strategies are different. They throw practically non-stop every day. Players are treated like robots. Japanese baseball teams don’t care about pitch counts.”

Cordier said he had a good spring training in which he allowed just one base runner and then started the regular season in late March as the Buffaloes’ closer. He blew a save in the team’s opener, but then earned saves in his next two appearances.

Shortly thereafter, Cordier’s season went downhill. He allowed a two-run homer to another American player while pitching middle relief and was unexpectedly sent to the club’s minor league team.

“I’m not sure why that happened,” said Cordier. “I guess it’s just part of their culture. If you fail, you’re going to get demoted. It made no sense to me. It blew me away. I didn’t know what to say or do, because it’s considered disrespectful to question authority over there.”

Cordier spent a month in the minors before the Buffaloes called him back up in early June. He then pitched in five games during a seven-day stretch and hurt his abdomen.

“They asked me to throw a lot of games in a row and I think that’s the main reason I got hurt,” said Cordier. “I was pretty spent — arm, body, legs, core, everything. Near the end of one appearance I felt a twinge in my lower abdominal area, which was pretty uncomfortable. I saw two doctors, had an MRI and was diagnosed with a sports hernia.”

Cordier underwent three weeks of rehabilitation and then spent the next two months in the minors, where he “tried to pitch myself back to healthy and back to the big leagues.”

“I got to the point where the pain was subsiding and I could manage the symptoms,” he said. “Then in mid-August it started feeling worse again. I couldn’t run, cut or jump because it hurt. I started to adjust my delivery and my performance wasn’t very good because of that. At the end of August, I said, ‘This isn’t working’ and told the team I wanted to go back to the United States to get another doctor’s opinion.”

The Buffaloes honored Cordier’s request without contractual penalties. A week after returning to the U.S., Cordier met with a renowned core muscle specialist at the Vincera Institute in Philadelphia. M.D. William Meyers performed surgery Sept. 13.

“The doctor said there was a lot of damage — inflammation and torn muscles in the abdomen, groin and pubic area,” said Cordier. “But everything went well. It’s about a six- to eight-week recovery and rehab period.”

Cordier said playing professional baseball in Japan was “a very eye-opening experience.” One of five U.S. players on the Buffaloes’ roster, Cordier said everything was “very routine-orientated” when it came to warmups, meetings, batting practices, bullpen sessions and the like. He described the team’s day-to-day approach as a “grind.”

“Part of it is Japanese culture,” said Cordier. “The vibe I got is that if you have a bad stretch, they think you’re not working hard enough and you have to practice more. In the U.S., teams might give you some time off to recover and get your head straight.”

Cordier said Japanese teams don’t provide pregame and postgame meals like they do in the U.S. Players rely on public transportation to commute to and from practices and home games, which in Cordier’s situation took about an hour each way.

Cordier said the game atmosphere is much different than it is in the U.S., with non-stop chanting and a break after the fifth inning that generally lasts between five and 15 minutes to rework the field.

“It’s like a soccer match over there,” said Cordier.

Cordier said communicating with the Japanese “was a challenge,” but he got by with the help of three translators who worked for the team and by learning some basic Japanese language on his own.

“Any in-depth conversations were out,” said Cordier. “But I tried my best to pick up as much of their language as I could as far as directions, numbers, ordering food, please and thank you. There are a lot of signs in English, and bus drivers make announcements in both Japanese and English, which helped.”

Cordier said he established a good rapport with the Japanese players.

“The players were really nice,” he said. “Some of them could speak English and others couldn’t, but it was easy to get along with them when it came time to hanging out or being around them in the clubhouse. That felt somewhat normal compared to the U.S.”

Cordier said his overall experience of Japan “wasn’t bad,” but it gave him a greater appreciation for the U.S.

“Without sounding too corny, this has made me very patriotic,” said Cordier. “I know our country is going through some bad stuff, but I’ve never been so happy to return home and have a voice and the freedoms that we have here. I learned I’m definitely more suited to be an American.”

Cordier wants an opportunity to pitch again in the U.S. He’s been playing professional baseball since 2004, when he was drafted in the second round by the Kansas City Royals out of Southern Door High School. He’s also pitched for the Atlanta Braves, Pittsburgh Pirates, San Francisco Giants and Miami Marlins organizations.

Cordier has made a total of 15 big-league appearances during his career, including seven for the Giants in 2014 and eight for the Marlins in 2015.

“It’s hard to say if I’ll get another chance,” said Cordier. “I’m going to be 31 by spring training, but I’m not even a year removed from pitching in the big leagues. I don’t have any arm injuries or anything major like that. I just had a rough year in a foreign country.

“I realize I’m not going to go right to the big leagues. That’s not going to happen. But somebody can use a guy who throws 100 (miles per hour), and I’m going to work my ass off to get back there.”