Rakuten Eagles announced on the 10th that manager Hajime Miki will be taking a leave of absence. The decision to take a leave of absence was made after discussions between the manager and the team, and head coach Tatsuya Shiokawa will take over as acting manager from the game against The Giants on June 10th.

The team has played 58 games so far, with a record of 21 wins, 36 losses, and 1 tie. They have been struggling since the start of interleague play, with a record of 2 wins and 10 losses. In the game The Giants on the 9th (Rakuten Eagles Mobile's strongest team), they were completely defeated, lacking sharpness in both pitching and hitting. They suffered their fourth consecutive loss, putting them at their worst deficit of the season at 15 games below .500.

They were 14.5 games behind the league leaders Seibu Lions and 7 games behind the fifth-placed Lotte. They were in a difficult situation, languishing at the bottom of the league. In the game against DeNA on the 4th (Yokohama), they suffered a crushing comeback loss after being down by 7 runs, and although they had taken measures to improve the situation, such as changing pitcher coach's position on the 5th, they decided to take an even more drastic measure.

Manager Miki has followed an unusual career path, serving as the first-team manager once every 20 years, then managing the second team, and finally returning to the first team. However, in his second year back with the first team, he was unable to achieve the results he had hoped for.

Hajime Miki was born on April 25, 1977, in Osaka City. He is 49 years old. He joined Yakult in 1995 as the first overall pick in the draft after graduating from Uenomiya High School. He transferred to Nippon-Ham in 2008 and retired from playing that same year. He served as head coach for Nippon-Ham from 2009 to 2013 and for Yakult from 2014 to 2018. In 2019, he became the manager of Rakuten Eagles Eagles' minor league team, and was promoted to manager of the first team in 2020. He became the minor league manager again in 2021 and had been the manager of the first team again since last season.