Lotte’s Tokito Kawamura he was “happy” about his comeback win last time out, but added, “I can’t be complacent,” and “I want to use this as an opportunity to pitch more.”
Baseball King
2025.9.15(月) 00:30
“I was really happy to win.”
Lotte’s Tokito Kawamura ‘s last appearance on the 8th against Orix (Zozo Marine Stadium) was his first win since May 11, 2022 against Rakuten.
Kawamura joined the Lotte Marines as the fourth pick in the 2020 draft. In his first year in 2021, he pitched in 20 games as a starter and reliever, earning four wins (1). In his second year in 2022, he also recorded two wins, but on September 16th of that year, he underwent right ulnar nerve anterior transfer surgery and right elbow medial collateral ligament reinforcement surgery. He was expected to be out of action for five to six months, but did not pitch in either the first or second varsity teams in 2023. He made his return to action on October 10th, 2023, in a game against the KBO All-Stars in the Miyazaki Phoenix League.
He became a development player during the offseason that year, but returned to the regular team on July 31, 2024. However, he did not pitch in the first team. During the fall practice held at Zozo Marine Stadium in November, he began working on his physique, saying, “I want to build up the muscles in my upper body and I want to build up the stamina so that I can play for the whole of next year.”
During the off-season, he trained independently at Driveline in the United States with Yuji Nishino, Shunsuke Nakamori, and Haruya Tanaka he analyzed his movements and identified areas of improvement to his form in order to increase the speed of fastball pitches.
He pitched one game each in a practice game and an open game, but the opening was greeted with the second team, and if he threw 7 innings in the The Giants second team game on April 8 and closer to runs, he showed a stable pitch with a quality start of 3 consecutive games (6 or more innings and within 3 earned runs) in the Oisix game on April 24th, the Yakult second team game on May 3rd, and the DeNA second team game on May 11th. In June and July, runs stood out, but in the Nippon-Ham match against the second team on August 5th, he threw 8 innings, which was the longest since right elbow surgery, and pitched 4 hit, 4 strike out, 1 BB, and no runs.
On August 14th, he made his first appearance in the first team since May 26th, 2022, in a game against Nippon-Ham, but was knocked out after pitching 3 2/3 innings and giving up 5 runs. After pitching in the farm team, he got another chance to start in the first team against Orix on September 8th.
In the first inning, he suddenly hit consecutive hits with no outs on first and second base, and hit Ryo Ota with a fly to right, but he was hit by a timely hit to take the lead in the following Yuma Tongu. I runs the first time, but there were many runs in the early inning on the farm. I wonder if it went up to mound after the second inning.
“Yes, I thought we had given up another run, but I had talked with my coach about reflecting on the last game and realizing that we had given up one run and things had started to drag on. Before taking the mound, we had talked about how we needed to be able to accept a certain number of runs and then move on. I think I was able to move on just like that.”
Behind that, his teammates scored 3 points and turned the game around. After the second inning, he switched to fastball and breaking ball to fork slider pitch, and the fifth inning was reduced to 1 runs.
Would you have wanted to throw more fastball to closer?
“Of course I would have liked to push fastball, but there was also the opponent, so I chose a ball that I could closer at the time, and that’s how it turned out.”
He has been focusing on fastball since last fall. Regarding his current fastball, he said, “I wonder how it is in terms of speed. I don’t know if it’s coming out better than before the surgery, but looking at just the pitching appearance on the 8th, there were a lot of strikeouts, so I think it was good that there were strikeouts considering the speed.”
When asked which victory Kawamura felt more joyful about, his first professional win against Softbank on July 7, 2021, or this comeback win, he immediately replied, “I’m much happier this time.” He explained the reason, saying, “win in my first year was something I didn’t think about, win just went with the flow, but this time things didn’t go well, so I was much happier this time.”
Although he achieved a victory to mark his comeback, what’s important is what comes next. “I’ve received a lot of congratulations, but it’s just the beginning, how should I put it, I can’t get complacent, I want to use this as an opportunity to pitch more,” he said, acknowledging his own actions.
Aiming for his second win since his return, he will start in the game against Rakuten at 1:00 p.m.
Interview and text by Yuta Iwashita