"I don't really have any particular feelings about that."

Lotte's Shunsuke Nakamori has set a new personal season high with 13 hold in 28 games, but he shows absolutely no interest.

From his first appearance of the season against Orix Buffaloes on May 4 to game The Giants on June 11, he went 11 consecutive games without runs. With the mindset of 'use the best as much as possible,' he was pitch in slider right after his promotion, but on June 14 against DeNA, he drove leadoff leadoff Atsushi Katsumata to 2 strike in the seventh inning, then grounded out a grounder on the third pitch, a 137 km/h fork. From the June 14 game against DeNA, he returned to a pitch style similar to last season, using only two pitches, fastball and fork.

However, from late July, he returned to his pitch style, mixing slider. That slider also appeared in Game Orix Buffaloes on July 25, where he got Keita Nakagawa out from two balls to left without a 3-3 scoreless inning in the seventh inning, runner slider threw a faster slider at 139 km/h, and in the August 1 game against Nippon-Ham, with one out in the eighth inning and no runner, he fouled the third pitch from two balls on Kotaro Kiyomiya with a slider of 131 km/h.

According to Nakamori, slider that struck out Nakagawa was a "small slider," while slider he threw to Kiyomiya was a "big slider," indicating that he throws different slider depending on the situation. In an interview on August 4th, he revealed that slider were "okay. They're not that great."

fork was on July 23 in Game Rakuten Eagles, with one out and runners on first and second in the 7th inning with a score of 3-1, 3-1, and strike on the seventh pitch, swinging struck out Ryosuke Tatsumi on the seventh pitch to 137 km/h fork. On July 25 in Game Orix Buffaloes, with two outs and a runner on first and first in the 7th inning with a score of 3-4, he swung and missed the second pitch from the strike zone to the Ryoma Yamanaka with 1 strike, delivering a 135 km/h fork.

In an interview on August 4th, he analyzed his pitching, saying, "There are more cases where batters are able to recognize fork, so I thought it would be good to have a pitch that I can throw to get ahead in count full count when it's full, so I've started throwing a small slider again. I want to throw while judging what the batter is good at and what they are not." In the game Seibu Lions that same day, in the 7th inning with one out and a runner on first base, with the score 5-3, he threw a 136 km/h fork to Canario on the second pitch after one strike, and it dropped nicely from strike zone to the ball zone.

fastball reached a season-high of 153 km/h in the game Rakuten Eagles on July 23rd, and 17 out of 18 of fastball have exceeded 150 km/h, indicating an increasing number of appearances where he is clocked at 150 km/h or higher.

However, Nakamori said, "I think the velocity is good in terms of the numbers, but it's not a high-quality ball, it's not a ball that has good numbers. It's not a ball that can get a swing and a miss, and although it's necessary for getting ahead in count, I've been trying to use other pitches instead of just my fastball, and I'm watching the batter's reaction, but my fastball is still not the way I want it to be, so I'm kind of just getting by" (interviewed on August 4th), indicating that he is not yet satisfied with his pitches.

In the Orix Buffaloes game on July 25, with no outs in the 7th inning with no runner in the 7th, he threw a 117 km/h curveball for the first time in the first team this season on the first pitch of the Haruto Watanabe, but this was related to watching the batter's reaction and using a different pitch type. Looking at his subsequent appearances, the Orix Buffaloes game on the 9th and the Softbank Hawks game on the 13th were pitch mainly breaking ball.

Although he said in an interview on August 4th that he wasn't satisfied with fastball, he pitched 5 innings in 5 games in August, strike out more than inning pitched) ERA of 0.00. His season statistics so far are also impressive, with 3 wins, 1 loss, 13 hold, 1 save, ERA of 1.29, and a WHIP of 0.96 in 28 appearances.

With summer vacation underway, many children who aspire to become professional baseball players or who simply love baseball are visiting the stadium to watch the games. "First of all, I want to show them that closer scoreless, and I want to do my best to get through August and September without getting injured." In addition to consistent pitch, we hope he can fight to the end without getting injured.

Interview and text by Yuta Iwashita