Professional baseball Rakuten Yuya Kubo retires from active duty "Happy to enjoy baseball for 18 years" November 7, 15:15
Yuya Kubo, a pitcher of Rakuten, one of the "Matsuzaka Generation" professional baseball players, announced that he would retire from active duty only this season, and said, "I was happy to enjoy baseball for 18 years."
Pitcher Kubo is 40 years old, 18 years professional.
It is the so-called "Matsuzaka Generation" who is the same age as Seibu's pitcher Daisuke Matsuzaka.
Joined the giant in 2003, and responded to all kinds of appointments such as starting pitchers, reliever pitchers, and closers with a variety of changing balls.
In particular, in 2010, he pitched in 79 games, which is the highest number of relief pitchers, and raised 32 holds. In the following year, he marked a good result with an ERA of 1.17, mainly as a restraint, and recorded no goals in 20 games in a row.
After that, I suffered from injuries, but after taking the Rakuten joining test in 2017 after DeNA and transferring, I pitched more than 20 games for 3 consecutive years, and I achieved a total of 500 games last season.
However, he pitched only five games this season, and at a press conference before the final league match in Sendai City on the 7th, he said, "I couldn't get any results and I felt my strength was weakening." He announced that he would retire from active duty as long as possible.
Pitcher Kubo recalled with a radiant expression, "At Rakuten, I was able to work so seriously that I wouldn't mind losing baseball in the future. I was happy to enjoy baseball for 18 years."
Regarding the same "Matsuzaka Generation," I was grateful that "I was blessed with good friends because there were many classmates I could respect both as friends and rivals."
After the press conference, pitcher Kubo was handed a bouquet by Naoto Watanabe, a batting coach who played a retirement match on the night of the 6th in the same Matsuzaka generation, and said goodbye to his 18 years of professional life.
"Matsuzaka Generation" is the third person to retire this season
Seibu's pitcher Daisuke Matsuzaka and the players of the same grade are called "Matsuzaka Generation", and many players were active as professionals.
However, Shuichi Murata, who marked a total of 360 home runs in Yokohama and the Giants, and Toshiya Sugiuchi, who has won a total of 142 wins in the Giants and Softbank, have retired one after another.
Following Hanshin's pitcher Kyuji Fujikawa and Rakuten's Naoto Watanabe, who made a showcase in the retirement game on the 6th, Rakuten's Yuya Kubo announced his retirement on the 7th, making him the third player this season. ..
In addition to this, only two pitchers, Matsuzaka and Tsuyoshi Wada of Softbank, are still active in professional baseball, and the players who have built an era are saying goodbye to their professional lives one after another.