While many teams have their first day off during professional baseball spring training, Lotte was the only team to practice, completing the first season. Naonori Yasuda, who mainly played third until last season, is seriously trying to play first this season and is working to improve his defensive ability.
Yasuda, who is in his 7th year, participated in 122 games as a regular in the third team last season, and his batting average was only .238, but he has been the strongest in the game so far, such as hitting a walk-off home run in the climax series. The blow was brilliant.
This season, the leaders want to invigorate competition within the team, and they are making a full-fledged challenge to the first team, which they only kept for 14 games last season.
At camp, we used two types of gloves, one for first and one for third, and during practice on the 5th, the final day of the first season, we played catch using both gloves, and then during defensive practice, we switched to first and pitched. I carefully checked the coordination with the team and the start of the first step.
Also, during free batting held outdoors in the afternoon, he had a habit of being more focused on hitting the ball than during batting practice at the indoor range, so he was careful not to relax his shoulders. He showed off a sharp swing and made a series of hits that went over the fence.
Yasuda said, ``When you play both first and third, the scenery is completely different, so you just have to get used to it.I want to get a lot of knocks and get better.''