◆ Pacific League: Rakuten Eagles vs. Seibu Lions (25th, Rakuten Eagles Mobile Saikyo Park Miyagi)

Seibu Lions ・ Haruse Narita (Haruse) pitcher joined the first team on the 25th for the first time since turning pro regular season.

The right-handed pitcher, originally from Aomori Prefecture, joined Seibu Lions in 2023 as the fourth pick in the draft after graduating from Hirosaki Technical High School. Upon his first promotion to the first team from Tohoku, he smiled and said, "I'm happy, and I feel a good sense of tension. It feels like fate that I was able to join the first team from Tohoku."

In his third professional season, he completed the first team's training camp in Nango, Miyazaki, and pitched in four exhibition games with ERA of 4.50. He was sent to the farm team for further adjustment midway through the exhibition season and also pitched in third-team games. In the farm team, he pitched in 11 games with a record of 0 wins and 0 losses and ERA of 3.38.

"It's simply about control and output, just those two things. I was overthinking things, so I'm trying to keep it simple, or rather, not overthinking things and just focus on my movements," he said, explaining his adjustments that led to his long-awaited first promotion. "The team seems like it's going to win, so I want to ride that wave," he added enthusiastically.

In addition, pitcher Yuta Nakamura has rejoined the first team. He was added to the active roster on May 6th after injuring the subscapularis muscle in his right shoulder, but he returned with a smile, saying, "I recovered quickly. I realized I needed to work on the finer details of my inner muscles, so I've been doing a lot of simple training." With reliever pitchers showing signs of fatigue, he vowed, "We'll all help and cover for each other where we can, and I hope we can all focus on what we need to do."