Rakuten Eagles On July 7, Kosei Shoji pitcher of the "K" team took part in live BP (hitting practice) for the first time at the Kanatake camp in Okinawa. hitter With five players and 29 pitches in total, hit the right-hander, who is in the running for the opening pitcher season, said, "I'm going to do it with that in mind. I'm going to grab it myself," he said, expressing his strong desire to play his first major role.

"If I throw 150 km/h with the feeling that it's coming, it's easy for hitter to hit, and it's easy to get the distance. But if I throw 150 km/h with the feeling that it's coming at me, it's hard to hit," he said, in his fourth year as a pro, where he is working on mastering a pitch form that closer the sense of power. In his first match against Sato (formerly Softbank Hawks), he struck out two pitches in a row, and said, "Based on hitter 's reaction, I was able to insert it properly," expressing satisfaction with the quality of his fastball. He said that by changing his form, the trajectory of breaking ball, such as fork, is also different from last season.

Furthermore, he also tried out a two-seam two seam fastball he had improved after getting advice from pitcher Kenta Maeda who had returned from the majors, on how to place his fingers on the seams. "Until now, I've been trying to make it change shape myself, but if I just throw it like this (with my fingers on the seams), it changes shape," he said, emphasizing that he felt confident about this as well.

He faced hitter for the first time, steadily progressing towards making his debut in actual games. In his bid to become the opening day pitcher, he calmly identified areas for improvement, saying, "Today, my quick pitches weren't working well. I want to improve my accuracy."