{"id":591891,"date":"2026-02-25T10:21:16","date_gmt":"2026-02-25T10:21:16","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/591891\/"},"modified":"2026-02-25T10:21:16","modified_gmt":"2026-02-25T10:21:16","slug":"hiroshima-carp-terminate-contract-with-infielder-hatsuki-for-drug-use","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/591891\/","title":{"rendered":"Hiroshima Carp terminate contract with infielder Hatsuki for drug use"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>The NPB&#8217;s Hiroshima Toyo Carp said Wednesday it had terminated its contract with infielder Ryutaro Hatsuki following his arrest and indictment for allegedly using etomidate, the designated drug used in a &#8220;zombie cigarette.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;After confirming the facts, we terminated the contract on Tuesday as we take the matter extremely seriously,&#8221; the team said in a statement.<\/p>\n<p>According to the indictment, Hatsuki, 25, is suspected of vaporizing and inhaling a small amount of the drug at his home in the western Japan city of Hiroshima around Dec. 16 last year.<\/p>\n<p>He initially denied the charges upon his arrest but later admitted to them.<\/p>\n<p>Hatsuki was indicted on Feb. 17 for violating the pharmaceuticals and medical devices law and was granted bail the following day.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;I feel very responsible as a manager,&#8221; said Carp manager Takahiro Arai in a statement. &#8220;Recognizing the seriousness of this issue once again, the entire team will work to regain trust.&#8221;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The NPB&#8217;s Hiroshima Toyo Carp said Wednesday it had terminated its contract with infielder Ryutaro Hatsuki following his&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":591892,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2302],"tags":[5,8917,5198,2353,2352,77259,77260],"class_list":["post-591891","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-npb","tag-baseball","tag-drugs","tag-hiroshima-carp","tag-nippon-professional-baseball","tag-npb","tag-ryutaro-hatsuki","tag-zombie-cigarettes"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@mlb\/116130773968109813","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/591891","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=591891"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/591891\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/591892"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=591891"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=591891"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=591891"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}