Pitcher Takahisa Hayakawa, the first draft of professional baseball and Rakuten, threw a changing ball such as a cut ball for the first time in a camp in Okinawa.
Pitcher Hayakawa is a left-handed pitcher who boasts the fastest speed of 155km, and entered the bullpen for two consecutive days on the third day of the camp and practiced pitching.
On the 2nd, I threw only a straight ball, but on the 3rd, I threw 61 balls with 4 changing balls, such as a cut ball that bends at the batter's hand and a change-up that falls sharply.
Since the theme was whether it was thrown in the orbit as I imagined, I was politely throwing it while checking the aim of each ball, such as whether to strike out or earn a count.
Pitcher Hayakawa recalled, "The cut ball was far from the trajectory I expected. From now on, I would like to increase the number of balls and experience the actual battle to get closer to my image."
When asked about his motivation for the Tokyo Olympics after Atsunori Inaba, the Japanese national baseball manager, visited the tournament, he said, "I want to dig into the competition to become a member of the Japanese national team in order to become the ace of Rakuten. Now I want to do my best to do what I can. "