As baseball returns to the Olympics after a 13-year absence, Tokyo's one-year coronavirus postponement has allowed extra help to arrive as Japan seeks its first Olympic gold medal in the form of former New York Yankees star Masahiro Tanaka.

Tanaka made waves across Japan in January, when he announced he had turned down offers from major league clubs to return home for the 2021 season, opening a door for him to pitch in the Olympics, where he'll join forces with childhood teammate, shortstop Hayato Sakamoto.

Masahiro Tanaka pitches on July 25, 2021, at Rakuten Seimei Park Miyagi in Sendai, northeastern Japan. (Kyodo)

"I think it's just amazing timing that we can play together in the Olympics. I'm looking forward to it," said Sakamoto, the captain of Japan's iconic Yomiuri Giants, who passed Japanese pro baseball's iconic 2,000-hit milestone last year and has a chance to be the second player with 3,000 career hits in Japan.

Long before they became two of Japanese pro baseball's biggest stars, they formed a battery for their youth team with Sakamoto pitching and Tanaka catching in Itami, Hyogo Prefecture, in Western Japan.

Both turned pro out of high school, but Tanaka made a bigger early splash on the national stage and pitched for Japan in the 2008 Beijing Olympics as a 19-year-old when Sakamoto's career was just getting under way with the nation's oldest pro club, the Yomiuri Giants.

Hayato Sakamoto trains on July 21, 2021, at Rakuten Seimei Park Miyagi in Sendai, northeastern Japan. (Kyodo)

The two teamed up again in the 2013 World Baseball Classic, but it seemed unlikely they would ever be Japan teammates again after Tanaka joined the Yankees on a seven-year deal the following winter.

Now the pair has a chance to end a long frustrating spell for Japanese pro ballplayers in the Olympics. Restricted to amateurs prior to 2000, Japan won a gold and a silver in the two Olympics in which baseball was an unofficial sport.

In three tournaments since pros joined the effort, Japan has managed just a single bronze, twice losing medal-round games to arch-rival South Korea. The bronze came in 2004, when South Korea failed to qualify.

A veteran of Japan's 2008 Olympic disappointment, Tanaka threw seven scoreless innings only for Japan to leave Beijing without a medal after a semifinal defeat to eventual champion South Korea and a loss to the United States' team of minor league prospects in the bronze medal game.

Had the Tokyo Olympics gone ahead as scheduled a year ago, Tanaka, then in the final year of his Yankees contract, would, like other major leaguers, have been prohibited from playing. The postponement and Tanaka's free agency, however, opened that door. And now the right-hander's focus is to wear a gold medal alongside Japan's "hinomaru" national emblem on his chest.

"I'm overjoyed to compete while wearing the hinomaru," Tanaka said. "But at the same time I feel the sense of responsibility that comes with it."

In 2008, Tanaka switched from No. 18 -- traditionally only given to ace pitchers in Japan -- he wore with the Eagles to No. 15 out of deference for Japan's ace at the time, Yu Darvish. This time, Tanaka, who set a Japan record by winning 28 consecutive decisions from 2012 to 2013, is the man in the spotlight.

In seven seasons in New York, Tanaka went 78-46 with a 3.74 ERA and was 5-4 with a 3.33 ERA in the eight postseason games. While many expected his polished major league skills would enable Tanaka to dominate Japanese hitters this season, but it hasn't quite happened yet.

"My strength is that I can locate my pitches anywhere," said Tanaka, who in 13 starts for the Eagles leading up to the Olympic break, has made careful adjustments to his pitch combinations and approach, and appears primed for a breakthrough.

After years of pitching to big-swinging major leaguers, Tanaka has been frustrated by Japan's legion of slap hitters, who carefully poke good two-strike pitches foul, and run up his pitch counts. With a 2.86 ERA, Tanaka's 4-5 win-loss record is largely the result of infrequent run support.

It has not been easy going for Sakamoto this year, either. On May 9, the Giants star broke a finger sliding head-first into a base. After an intense rehab program, he returned to action on June 11 -- in time to be chosen for the national team, where he'll fill a veteran leadership role on manager Atsunori Inaba's 24-man star-laden squad.

"This tournament, especially, is going to be in the spotlight," Sakamoto said. "And I want to show everyone, and not just the kids, games that will make them think, 'Baseball is great.'"