Lotte's Yuji Nishino has pitched five innings in two external games so far, with ERA of 5.40. In his first appearance of the season on February 21st against Rakuten Eagles, he pitched two innings and gave up three runs, but on February 28th Seibu Lions, he runs three scoreless innings. In external games up until last season, he didn't often throw his signature fork in an exhibition game against Hiroshima on March 6th, 2013, but this year he has been throwing all of his pitches evenly since his first game.

Regarding pitch so far, Nishino confessed, "What I want to do and what I intend to do hasn't come out well on mound." He summarized, "Even when the batter is on mound, I think it's more important to do it properly rather than worrying about the result, but I think it's important to be able to do it, and I haven't been able to do that well. To be honest, if you ask me if I'm in great shape, I don't think so, and that's how it's been for the past two games."

◆ For this season

　先発に再転向した23年は8勝、24年はシーズン自己最多タイの9勝をマーク。24年は交流戦前の取材からストレートを課題にしていると話していたが、昨季はオープン戦からストレートに自信を持って投げ込めていた。25年に向け期待の持てる形でシーズンに入ったが、開幕してからは打線の援護に恵まれず、さらに自身の故障の影響で、9試合・49回2/3を投げ、0勝4敗、防御率3.08とまさかの未勝利に終わった。

In the off-season leading up to 2025, he recaptured his strong fastball through "hard" voluntary training like he did in 2023. And this off-season he also trained rigorously, saying, "I think I worked hard." However, his last game was against Softbank Hawks last year, so it's been quite a while since then, and when I'm on mound, I feel like I haven't quite got the hang of pitching," he said, expressing his inability to demonstrate what he has been working on on mound.

Regarding the strength of fastball, which is a concern, he seems unsatisfied, saying, "The power output itself is faster than last year, but I feel like there's still a long way to go."

At this point, is everything going according to the plan you envisioned?

"If you ask me if everything is going according to plan, I would say no, but after pitching in a real game for the first time in a while, I have a general idea of what I need to do. I hope to be able to work on that, take it one game at a time, and be in good shape for the opening game."

Until last season, the opening rotation was decided based on the previous year's performance, rather than being a competition, but this season he will once again be in a position to try and take it. Will the focus in these exhibition games be on results rather than performance?

"The manager has changed, so of course there will be competition, but even if I get results by making haphazard adjustments, I don't think it will work out well for the season. To be honest, I think it's more important to be able to control the balls and breaking ball that I envision to a certain extent as we approach the opening game. Of course, results are important, but for now I think it would be better to just find my own form and work on eliminating the issues I find one by one and improve."

　“内容”を重視した中で、まずは開幕ローテーション入りを目指していく。

Interview and text by Yuta Iwashita