Orix Buffaloes 's fifth-round draft pick, pitcher Shu Takaya, is continuing his training at the team's facility in Maishima, Osaka, with the goal of making a comeback to the first team.

Takatani was born in Sapporo. He joined the team from Sapporo Nichidai High School and Hokkai Gakuen University. He is a right-handed pitcher with sharp fastball and slider pitches with a maximum speed of 153 km/h. He has a sharp straight ball and his slider pitch has a good bend and is suited for actual competition," said Mamoru Kishida, the team's manager.

"My first goal is to pitch in the first team. I want to keep working hard until I get a chance," he commented towards the end of spring training. Although he missed out on making the opening day roster, he was promoted on April 1st and got his chance to pitch in the game against Nippon-Ham on April 3rd (ES CON FIELD). He took mound as the fourth pitcher with the score 0-6, but after one inning, he threw 38 pitches, giving hit 5 hits (1 Home Run), strike out 1, BB 1, and allowing 5 runs, so he was unable to celebrate his debut in his hometown.

"I wish I could have closer perfectly, but I'm glad I was able to experience matches like this early in the season. Since challenges came up early, I want to crush them," Takaya said. The challenges are understood. He said it was the pitch and the way the first pitch was delivered after placing the runner. "It's been a long time, but the issues are the quick pitching technique and distance after runner is the issue. Since it's the first team, if you don't battle the batters, you get hit easily. I want to make the second team's theme simpler in the mound so that we can fight opponents instead of ourselves," he said, looking ahead.

His motto is "Perseverance is power." He learned the importance of perseverance from Toshihiro Takanashi (former Yakult infielder), the representative of the soft baseball team "T・TBC" that he belonged to in junior high school. He switched to pitcher in high school and didn't become the ace, but from his first year of university he studied under an external trainer and managed to increase his fastball speed from 143 km/h by 10 km/h in one year. The trainer taught him how to use his body, and he said, "At first I didn't really understand, but as I kept at it, things gradually started to change." He says that by persevering, he grew into pitcher attracting attention from professional teams.

In his first mound since being demoted, against Softbank Hawks on the 19th (at Tamasta Chikugo), he started and pitched 3 innings, hit 52 pitches, allowing 4 hits (2 Home Run), strike out 2, Hit By Pitch, and earned runs. He had a good start in the first inning, only allowing one runner via Hit by Pitch hit-by-pitch, but in the second inning, with no outs, he gave up consecutive Home Run to infielder Ryuta Hirose and catcher Soichiro Ishizuka, leaving room for improvement.

After the game against Nippon-Ham, manager Kishida advised him, "You have the ability to throw well in the first team. Just be confident and throw accurately into the strike zone." "I don't have any outstanding talent. I'm the type of person who likes to work steadily every day, so I want to keep building on that." He's diligently tackling the challenges in front of him.

Interview and text by Masaki Kitano