Lotte pitcher Kazuya Ojima (29) opened his off-season training session, which he is conducting in Nagasaki Prefecture, to the public on the 18th.

Kojima is practicing with his teammates Takano, Hanshin Tigers 's Otake, The Giants' Bando, and Softbank Hawks 's Sasaki. He and Otake have taken over the "Wada Juku," a training program previously run by Wada Tsuyoshi, a senior from Waseda University and former Softbank Hawks player, until last year. Kojima, who places great importance on running and even "apprenticed" himself to a track and field athlete in December of last year, is running a considerable amount during this offseason training as well, saying, "I'm running quite a lot, but I think I'm also running with high quality."

In between practices, he visited a shrine. On the ema (votive tablet), he wrote "win," "14 wins," "regulation innings pitched," and "ERA 2.50." Last season, the team reached the regulation innings pitched for the fifth consecutive year, but finished last with 8 wins, 10 losses, and ERA 3.72. I was actually going to write the regulation innings pitched as 180 innings, but I mistakenly wrote 'regulation' first. If you throw a long inning, wins will naturally follow. I really want to get back at them. I want to lead by example.