Lotte's Yuji Nishino returned to the starting position in 2011 and recorded eight wins, and last season tied his career high with nine wins. However, he was sidelined this season due to injury, and finished win with 0 wins and 4 losses in nine games and 49 2/3 innings pitched, with ERA of 3.08.
Regarding the off-season leading up to the 2025 season, he reviewed how he spent his training period, saying, "Looking at it from a sensory perspective, I wasn't in good shape last year, but the year before that was really good, so I thought I'd try to spend my time in a similar way to how I did before the season last year."
The spring training camp in February was held in Miyakonojo for the first time this year. "It was really cold, but (at the spring training camp in Ishigaki Island) you go to a place where your body doesn't move very much, so in that sense I think I was able to get into the exhibition games smoothly," he said. Although it was colder than Ishigaki Island, it didn't seem to be a problem at all in terms of preparing for the season.
Last season, he repeatedly mentioned in interviews before the interleague games that fastball was an issue, but even before the season started, he was confident about fastball saying, "I think it's coming along pretty well this year."
"I just want to pitch. I definitely want to surpass the numbers I've had over the past two years, and I just want to pitch as many inning as possible. I say this every year, but that's how it is." In the exhibition games, he pitched 12 innings in three games, with a record of 2 wins and 0 losses and ERA 0.75. In his final warm-up appearance before his first appearance of the season on March 26th against Rakuten minor league team, he allowed just one runs in four innings, marking his first appearance of the season.
In the Orix game on April 2, which was his first appearance of the season, he said, "It was good, and the feeling was good," and summed it up with a strong fastball from the start to 1 runs in the 6th inning. During the open game, fork, who was saying, "I'm not in good shape, or rather, I'm practicing, I'm trying to change my grip and make a solid drop, and now I'm practicing it," , who finished Ryoma Nishikawa with a swing struck out from 2 balls and 2 strike without a 0-0 first two outs fork runner, was strike the sixth pitch. It was a good fall from the zone to the ball zone.
"I think it's going well. There were a few balls, but overall I made few mistakes, the ball was dropping well so I was able to swing my arm properly, and I was getting good results, so I think it's really going well," he said with a satisfied look on his face.
What concerned me was his shots. With the score at 1-0 in the fourth inning, Keita Nakagawa who was first up to bat, hit his fifth shot with two balls and two strike, but it was hit in front of right field, and it seemed like he wasn't pitching well inside. "The other day, I was pitching a little too softly, to be honest. The difficult thing is the edge, and I didn't like it when I was pitching to the edge and the ball was ahead, so I thought I'd pitch a little softly, and it seemed like I was pitching a little softly," he analyzed.
So, does he think that allowing hit to the right field was somewhat unavoidable?
"It can't be helped. I'm pitching too easy, or maybe on purpose. I wish I could pitch just a little harder, or just one more ball, just a little harder."
runner Yuma Tongu strike fork Even though he gave up a single, "It depends on what the hitter is focusing on, but I think I've been able to create a gap between my awareness and the hitter's, so I think I'm doing well," he said. He also got a 1 runs out in the 6th inning and was able to "create a game," which is the essence of Nishino's game.
On April 9, he started 6 days in a row against Seibu and also got a QS (3 earned runs or less over 6 innings) in 2 runs games in a row, but it was his first black mark of the season. On April 20, when he made a start after an interval between appearances Rakuten, he suffered his second loss in 5 innings and 4 runs.
After pitching in these three games, strike out. In the first inning alone against Seibu on April 9th, he threw 23 pitches, and from the second inning onwards he focused on pitching slider and curves to get the batters to hit the pitch. Nishino's constant talk of "creating the game" may also be related to strike out.
"Whenever I can strike out struck out, I want to, and of course I'm going for it, but I'm not that hung up on struck out. Rather than that, I always try to throw in a good spot, throw a ball that the opponent doesn't have in mind, create count that's in my favor, and then strike them out."
In the April 20 game against Rakuten, I wonder if he wants to go for struck out in places like the 1-3 5th inning when he took struck out from Hiroto Kobukata with no outs in the 3rd.
"That's right, it was the same there. I hit Asamura next, but it was the same when Asamura hit it, and when Nakamura hit it when he was with Seibu, so I'd like to aim for it when I can."
In the April 29th game Orix, he needed 31 pitches to get through the first inning without giving up a runs, then gave up a home run to Taishi Hirooka in the second inning, but kept the scoreboard at zero from the third inning onwards. In the game Orix on the same day, he threw 91 pitches over 5 innings, hit 5 hits, 5 strike out, 2 BB and 1 runs. His ability to keep the game going despite throwing a lot of pitches early on is the work of a seasoned veteran.
Nishino reflected, "Overall, it wasn't bad," and evaluated himself, saying, "I had a lot of issues, like a ball that was in a good spot being cut, so it felt like I ended up throwing more balls. But overall, I wasn't in bad shape."
On May 10 against Seibu, he lost his third game in 6 innings 4 runs, on May 21 against Orix, he threw 5 2/3 innings 3 runs and lost his fourth game, but on May 31 against Nippon-Ham, he threw 5 1/3 innings 1 runs and made the game.
In the Nippon-Ham game on May 31st, he lost one run in consecutive hits from two outs and no runner in the second inning, but in the 4th inning of 0-1, he hit two grounders to Torai Fushimi, followed by Taiki Narama with three grounders, and Ryota Isobata with a struck out, and when he finished this inning with only 9 pitches, the batting line rose up and succeeded in turning the game around. Behind the 3-1 score, he swung Yuya Gunji with an in-course shot struck out, followed by a ground ball to Daiki Asama and a ground ball to Reyes, but did not pass the flow. Nishino hit the lead of the 6th inning with a fly to left and went down mound. walk-off Due to the loss, Nishino's first win of the season was left behind, but the 4th inning that led to a comeback and the 5th inning pitch after the comeback were as expected. "I think it's absolutely necessary to do that, but I was scared because it was the first time in a long time that I was in such a situation, but I think I'm glad I was able to closer it properly," he recalled.
He said fastball has been in good condition since the exhibition games, and he said, "I don't think it's bad," so it remains as strong as ever.
Although they have not had many wins at this time, they seem to be in better form than they were at the start of the season.
"I think the fastball percentage has increased, but the results are not going well, so I don't think it's meaningful to maintain it. I don't think it's possible to have a pitch style in myself, a sudden increase in ball speed, or something like that, so I think it's important to review the pitch ratio and rebuild it in terms of distribution, right now."
Nishino is pitcher who has closer the number runs runs to two or three in the sixth inning, and his strength is his ability to control the game, but he has not had much support from the batting line since the start of the season, so is it difficult for him to keep the closer at zero as much as possible?
"That's true, but I don't think it's good to get too worked up, and it's difficult, but it's about finding the right balance. I think that the current team situation would be difficult if we were just at the level of creating (a game), so I think that I really need to take on the role of a boss. I would like to be able to continue pitching like that."
On June 11th, against Hiroshima, he pitched 5 2/3 innings, closer only one runs, but was removed from the first-team roster the following day, June 12th. It was thought that he would be a starter after a gap in his pitching time, but on June 13th, the team announced that he had been diagnosed with a "muscle injury in the right forearm flexor group."
Regarding the team during his absence, Nishino said, "I thought they were struggling, but I was doing my best to focus on myself." In a team situation like this, young players are often given priority over veterans for next season. Nishino himself acknowledged, "If it's like this, it's going to be like this."
However, even at 34 years old and in the prime of his career, he still has the determination that has come from having lived in the professional baseball world for so long. "I'm going to continue doing my own thing, and the important thing is that I can't show that my performance is better than the younger players, that I'm at a higher level, and I think that's how I can grab a place. That's really all I need to do, and that's to show my performance and abilities, or whatever you want to call it."
In preparation for his return to the first team, he made his return to action in the farm team on July 27th in a game against the DeNA second team, and started in three games: a game against the The Giants second team on August 3rd and a game against the DeNA second team on August 10th.
In the game against The Giants' second team on August 3rd, he mainly pitched breaking ball from the third inning onwards, with 4 straight fastball out of 10 in the third inning, and in the game against the DeNA second team on August 10th, he mainly pitched breaking ball from the second inning onwards. I wonder if he was trying out pitching in the farm team with the aim of returning to the first team.
"That's not the case. I was just trying to improve the accuracy of my shots and how I felt."
In his first appearance since returning to the first team on August 17th against Softbank, fastball was stronger than in the three games he started in the farm team, and he said, "It was really good. I think I was able to pitch at a really good level overall," throwing a variety of pitches including fork, slider, curveball, and shooter.
He was feeling confident with his fastball when he was forced to leave the team due to an injury. After his return, he said of fastball, "It was good against Softbank, and I felt like I was throwing some pretty strong balls when I was in the farm team."
In the Softbank match, he threw fork over 140 kg, including finishing Isami Nomura with a struck out swing from 1 ball 2 strike to 142 fork kg with two outs and two runner in the 0-0 inning, and the drop was large.
"It was good. It felt good. I don't know what will happen next, but I would like to maintain that amount of variation, control and precision."
He also said of his inside shot to right-handed hitter, "It was pretty good. I threw a few pitches, but I don't think there were that many." His 146 km/h inside shot that struck out Hotaka Yamakawa on a 2-ball count with two outs and a runner on second base in the first inning with the score tied at 0-0 was also good.
In the end, this game Softbank was his last first-team appearance of the season, and the season ended with him not making any appearances. He was expected to be a part of the starting rotation this season, but he surprisingly ended up win. It's not good to think about what might have been, but if he had been able to get a win when he was pitch consistently right after the start of the season, perhaps the season would have been different. While there are many promising young players, he wants to use the experience he has cultivated over the years to prove on mound next season that he is still not inferior to the young players.
Interview and text by Yuta Iwashita
