Soutaro Shimauchi won the title of best middleman in professional baseball in Hiroshima last season. He entered the bullpen on the second day of camp and worked on learning a new pitch type, the curve.
The Hiroshima camp, which is being held in Nichinan City, Miyazaki Prefecture, had to practice mostly indoors due to rain. Of the 41 pitches he threw on the 2nd, about one-third were curveballs, and while he says his performance is "still at about 10 to 20 percent"