On the 15th, Softbank Hawks pitcher Naoyuki Uwasawa (31) vowed to be the pillar of the team in the "2026 season without Arihara." He held a public training session in Miyakojima, Okinawa, and threw 30 pitches to catcher in his first bullpen session. In response to Arihara's transfer to Nippon-Ham, who won the most wins in two consecutive years in 2024 and 2025 and threw the most inning on the team in 2025 with 175, Uesawa declared that he would become an "Iron Man."

"When Arihara leaves, someone has to take up inning." In 2013, his first year after the transfer, he was part of the starting rotation and recorded a career-high 12 wins in 23 games (also 12 wins in 2021) with ERA of 2.74. Even so, he said, "I wanted to achieve better results than last year (2013), whether Arihara was there or not. I want to continue what I've been doing and improve on that," and he was conscious of surpassing his career-high of 170 innings, which he recorded in 2011 while with Nippon-Ham.

After the 2025 season ended, he gained about 3-4 kilograms through weight training in an attempt to improve his average fastball velocity. "I was thinking of losing some weight if I couldn't run well, but surprisingly, I'm doing pretty well with running. My muscle mass has also increased steadily, so I've had some really good training," he said, feeling confident about his current "heaviest body ever" at 92 kilograms. He added, "There's no point in getting bigger if it doesn't translate to baseball performance. If I can move more easily by slimming down a bit more, I might do that, but if there's no need to slim down, I'll stay as I am..." He plans to adjust his weight to his ideal weight based on his pitching performance and other factors.

Reducing the burden on the shoulder and elbow is also an important factor for consistent performance as a member of the starting rotation. On this day, he repeated the medicine ball throwing motion that leads to the pitch motion, saying, "I wish I could practice the motion that leads to pitch in training other than holding the baseball ball. He said he used to throw 40 to 50 bullpen pitches two days before pitching during the season, but "I hope to reduce that too. I want to challenge myself because I have never achieved the number of inning pitches I have thrown. The team is grateful to have someone who throws long inning pitches. I want to be a player who helps the team get around," he said with power in his words.

"The only time I knew Arihara-san was when he was wearing the old The Fighters uniform. It was refreshing to see him in the new uniform (laughs)," he said, but his aspirations for 2026 are considerable. "Last year (2025), we were able to win the championship and become the best in Japan, so I want to be able to do that again," he said, setting his sights solely on defeating rival teams and standing at the top once more.