Nah, I also thought Sawamura was handled badly. Every time you thought "fucking finally! Now he´s going to show everyone!", it was followed up by him doing something stupid and killing all the momentum. Meanwhile, his rival got to throw without any downtime, even got to be a hero when he threw despite an injury. For the entirety of the series, I had hoped to get to the point where Sawamura becomes a reliable hero. He never did. :/