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.

Nishino confessed about pitch so far, "What I want to do and what I intend to do hasn't come out well on mound." He continued, "Even when there's a batter standing and I'm on mound, I think what's important isn't so much doing it properly and getting the result, but whether I can do it or not, and I haven't been able to do that well. To be honest, if you ask me if I'm in great shape, I'd say not, and that's how it's been for the past two games."

◆ For this season

After returning to the starting pitcher role in 2023, he recorded eight wins, and in 2024, he tied his career high with nine wins. He had mentioned in interviews before the interleague games that fastball was an issue, but from the exhibition games last season he was able to throw fastball with confidence. He started the season looking promising for 2025, but was not blessed with support from the batting lineup after the opening game, and then, due to his own injury, he pitched in nine games and 49 2/3 innings, finishing with a record of 0 wins and 4 losses with ERA of 3.08, a surprising win record.

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 point of interest, he said, "The power output itself is faster than last year, but I feel like there's still a long way to go," suggesting he's not entirely satisfied with it yet.

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."

With an emphasis on "content," the first goal is to be included in the opening rotation.

Interview and text by Yuta Iwashita