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 draw. 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 outplayed both offensively and defensively and suffered a crushing defeat. They have now lost four straight games and are down 15 games, their worst deficit of the season.

They were 14.5 games behind the league-leading Seibu Lions and 7 games behind the fifth-placed Lotte Marines. They were in a difficult situation, languishing at the bottom of the league.

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The gears that had gone awry could not be fixed. They were competing for first place until mid-April, but their pitching and hitting suddenly stopped clicking, leading to a major slump. They ended up languishing in last place.

First of all, there's no doubt that the team was in a difficult situation with its pitching staff. Voit, who hit .300 with 13 Home Run last season, has been in a severe slump at the plate this season. He's been struggling with a batting average of .119 and 0 Home Run, and coupled with poor physical condition, he was sidelined early on. The failure of their foreign player was a major blow. Going back further, the fact that regular short stop Muneyama suffered a left wrist injury, and Nishiguchi, who is part of the starting rotation and responsible for the winning pattern, has also been unable to contribute since the start of the season due to poor physical condition, also had a significant impact.

In May, in an attempt to revitalize the batting lineup, which had been struggling with a lack of scoring power, they brought in batting coach Yamashita, who had mainly been coaching the farm team, to the first team. Furthermore, on June 5th, the day after suffering a crushing comeback loss against DeNA on June 4th (in Yokohama) after being down by seven runs, they also changed pitcher coach's position. On June 2nd, they made the unusual mid-season personnel change of appointing Daichi Suzuki as captain, and they took one measure after another to try and improve their performance, but they were unable to achieve the desired results.

When asked for detailed explanations regarding player promotions, demotions, and selection methods, manager Miki often gave evasive answers. This not only suggested that player selection was driven by the front office, but also raised doubts about the manager's ability to command the team. It can be said that the combination of many factors led to the team's last-place finish in the league. (Rakuten Eagles correspondent, Kota Miyauchi)