On the 26th, Lotte announced that pitcher Atsuki Taneichi underwent an examination at a hospital in Kumamoto City on the 25th and was diagnosed with a ruptured left Achilles tendon.

After the All-Star break last season, Taneichi pitched 74 1/3 innings in 10 games, recording 6 wins and 2 losses, 94 strike out, and an astonishing ERA of 1.45. In September and October, he led the league with 4 wins and 48 strike out, earning him his first ever "Daiju Life Monthly MVP Award" in Pacific League pitcher category for September and October.

He was selected to represent Japan in the World Baseball Classic (WBC) held in March of this year, and appeared in three games as a relief pitcher. Armed with a powerful fastball and a sharp-breaking fork, he overpowered the world's hitter and made the name "TANEICHI" famous.

"The biggest thing is that I can now step onto mound with confidence, and I think that's the biggest thing. For the first time in baseball career, I'm feeling excited when I'm on mound. I think I'm able to pitch with a good sense of tension." (Interviewed on April 23, 2014)

With the confidence he gained at the WBC, he was expected to deliver an overwhelming pitch throughout the season, but then this accident happened. It's a disappointing injury that will keep him out of action for him, the team, and The Marines fans.

◆ A man who continues to evolve

In September 2020, Taneichi underwent surgery to reconstruct the ulnar collateral ligament of his right elbow, giving him experience of being sidelined for an extended period. After a long rehabilitation, he aimed for a full return to the first team during the 2023 spring training camp in Ishigaki Island, where he declared, "I want to surpass my past performance and skills. So I don't want to go back to how I felt before, or to be like I was in 2019 or 2020." That same year, he achieved his first 10 wins, and the following year, 2024, he reached the required number of innings pitched for the first time. Last season, he reached the required number of innings innings pitched for the second consecutive year, recorded a career-high 161 strike out, and especially after the All-Star break, he dominated pitch, growing into one of Japan's leading pitcher.

Since turning professional, Taneichi has maintained his drive for improvement and exploration, constantly evolving. As I've mentioned many times in articles, in 2019, Yuki Ariyoshi, who was catch ball partner at the time pitcher (now Lotte Data Strategy Group), said, "I thought slider was hard to catch, and I wanted to throw slider that would be as straight as possible, so I asked Ariyoshi about two days before (pitching) slider He said, 'Please teach me,' and he taught me," and immediately after being taught, he threw "Ariyoshi-san slider" for the first time in a game against Softbank Hawks on April 5 of the same year.

Last season, he struggled in the early spring but was able to perform well from the summer onwards because he spent his days thinking about how to improve, saying, "I try to find hints for pitch every day during practice. Every day, after I finish one or two things, I decide on a theme, and then I do it the next day, and then I improve based on whether it was good or bad. That was fun during the season."

He repeatedly said from his younger days that he wanted to become an overwhelming pitcher, the best pitcher, and he never neglected the effort to become pitcher he aspired to be, steadily building up his skills and climbing close to that goal. That's why this injury must be incredibly frustrating for him.

He possesses a high level of professionalism, never settling for the status quo and always striving for improvement. While the road to his "comeback" will be challenging, he will undoubtedly use this time to reflect on various things and power up.

It will be incredibly sad not to see Taneichi's exciting fastball and sharp-dropping fork for a while, but The Marines fans are eagerly awaiting the chance to see him in action on the first-team mound.

Interview and text by Yuta Iwashita