Lotte's starting pitching situation is very dire. Jackson, who joined the team this season, has pitched a team-high 104 1/3 innings and earned 7 wins, but the main starters, veterans, and promising young pitchers have not been able to perform as expected. We hope that Kazuya Ojima, who has achieved the required innings pitched for five consecutive seasons until last year, will step up his game.
In his final appearance of the first half of the season against Rakuten on July 22, Kojima delivered a Rakuten Eagles performance, throwing 141 pitches over 9 innings, hit 9 hits, strike out 6, BB 1, and giving up 2 runs, earning his third win of the season.
In his previous start against Rakuten Eagles, with the score 8-0 in the 6th inning with one out and no runner on base, he threw change-up frequently to left-handed hitter, including a 128 km/h outside change-up on the second pitch after a 1-ball count, which resulted in a swing and a miss from YG Yasuda, followed by another swing and a miss from a 124 km/ change-up on the third pitch.
"I often used fork to the left, but I've been trying out a changeup in the last two or three games to see what would happen."
When asked what prompted him to start throwing change-up to left-handed hitter again, he revealed, "I couldn't really distinguish between fork and fork, so I used to lump them together and call them both vertical breaking pitches. But now I feel like I can properly differentiate between the changeup and the forkball, so I'm able to use the changeup and fork to make a difference against left-handed batters."
Regarding right-handed hitter, in his previous appearance in Game Rakuten Eagles, he retired Hikaru Ota on the sixth pitch with two outs and a runner on first in the 2-0 inning, swinging slider struck out on a 2-ball, 2-strike on the inside course, showing good inside slider.
"Because of that, in the next at-bat, he hit slider, so I always try to look more carefully before going to mound, but if I had properly thought about why I went in and what the final pitch was, I wouldn't have made that mistake. It was a bit of a waste," he said, regretting that in the following fifth inning with two outs and no runner on base, he allowed slider to be hit to left field on a 2-ball, 2-strike.
cutter cutter He was also throwing faster than usual cutter, such as in the bottom of the 9th inning with a 10–2 count and two outs runner, when he induced a swing-and-miss Hiroto Kobukata on the second pitch—a 142-kilometer-per-hour outside fastball strike—from .
"For a while, I wasn't doing very well, but then Jackie (Jackson) taught me and I got better, but then I started to go back to not doing so well. I went back to Jackie for lessons, and the second time I learned from him, it just feels right. I try to improve every day by asking people who are good at my specialty pitches, and I do it in a way that will benefit me."
According to Kojima, Jackson's cutter is "catch is really scary even when playing balls, so it's hard to catch. It's fast but generates solid spin, and it's curved—ideally, it's straight but simply gets caught. Recently, my cuts have gotten faster with that, so I think that's good."
In fastball previous start against Rakuten Eagles, he said, "I think I have a lot of stamina, so ideally I'd like to throw fewer pitches and pitch more easily, but I think being able to throw a lot of pitches is one of my strengths, so I think it was good." In the bottom of the ninth inning, with one out and no runner on strike, he threw a 148 km/ fastball to Ryuya Taira, getting him to swing and miss, and he was still clocked over 145 km/h in the final inning.
Regarding fastball, he was pulled early inning games against Softbank Hawks on June 27th (2 innings, 3 runs, against Softbank Hawks on July 5th (3 innings, 3 runs, and against Orix Buffaloes on July 12th (5 innings, 3 runs allowed), but he was throwing powerful pitches exceeding 145 km/h.
In an interview on July 18, he said, "When I was able to pitch until the 7th inning, I wrote down what my strengths were, and I concluded that it was my fastball. At that point, I felt like I was putting too much force into my fastball to try and make it stronger. To use a spinning top analogy, I was trying to make the fingertips move, but I realized that my strength lies in being able to quickly rotate the core, the central axis, and then the outside of the ball moving faster as a result. I spent the week adjusting various menus and adjustments, and perhaps because of that, my fastball was much better. I felt that this kind of power produces this speed, and I think it worked well last time (against Orix Buffaloes on July 12), so I think it's important to continue doing that." This led to complete game game win against Rakuten Eagles on the 22nd.
While his pitches were good, the fact that he was repeatedly taken out of the game early in inning suggests that there might have been issues with hitter was facing.
"I think that's part of it, and just because the ball is good doesn't mean it won't get hit, so there are choices that need to be made depending on the batter. For example, there are times when you have to aim for a pitch that is perfect in both location and height, and there are times when it's okay if the location is a little off as long as you get the height right. Conversely, there are also times when it's okay if you only focus on the height, regardless of whether the location is high or low. I think that way of thinking and how you make mistakes are really important. Even if you are conscious of this, you can't prevent everything, pitcher aren't like that, so there will be times when you get hit, but I think I'm able to keep looking forward and think about it every day as I practice to get better baseball."
The team is currently 6 games behind. They are 9.5 games behind third-place Nippon-Ham, a considerable gap, but the only way to move up is to keep winning. To do that, Kazuya Ojima, who is usually strong from August onwards, needs to consistently achieve a Quality Start (7 innings with 2 or fewer earned runs) and pitch in a way that brings wins to the team. "There is only one game at a time, so first of all, I want to be in my best condition for the next game, and if I can create many games where I can showcase my strengths, I think the results will naturally follow, so I want to do my best without getting too caught up in the ups and downs." The team needs to show the determination of its ace.
Interview and text by Yuta Iwashita
