Just before the October 24 Draft! The Big 3 “Golden Egg” Pitchers Reveal Their Determination and Confidence

A powerful arm with a former desire to become a public servant.

Yuto Nakamura, 21, a right-handed pitcher from Aichi Institute of Technology University, was called up to the top team of Samurai Japan along with Kanamaru and Rui Soyama, 21, an infielder from Meiji University, and is also a candidate for the top spot. Like his rival Kanamaru, Nakamura was an unknown player in junior high school, and chose to go to the agricultural engineering department of Isahaya Agricultural College, a public school in Nagasaki Prefecture, because he “wanted to become a civil servant.

He said, “It is a school where students learn how to design lifelines and other social infrastructure, and it is a difficult course to get into, with the odds of getting in more than twice as high. My classmates have gone on to work for the Nagasaki Prefectural Government, the Ministry of Land, Infrastructure, Transport, and Tourism, and the Ministry of Agriculture, Forestry, and Fisheries from high school. At the time, I had no idea that I would ever aspire to become a professional.

Despite this, only Mitsuchika Hirai, 57, a former Lotte outfielder who is now the manager of Aikikai University, was smitten with Nakamura’s potential. He visited Nakamura for the first time when Nakamura was in his second year of high school and approached him, and Nakamura decided to go on to Aikokudai.

In his final summer, the Koshien Tournament was cancelled, and while his classmates, anxious to find work due to the COVID-19 crisis, gave up on participating in their own tournament, Nakamura took part.

There were people who wanted to play baseball but couldn’t,” Nakamura said. I wanted to do my best at university to make up for them.

Immediately after entering the university, Nakamura took the starting mound in the Aichi University Baseball League in the spring of his freshman year and won a game. Since that time, he has had his sights set on the pros, and his straight ball has reached a maximum velocity of 159 km/h. He throws with a compact, short arm using his right arm.

I studied my own form to avoid putting stress on my right shoulder and elbow, and arrived at my current form. I think my strengths are the strength of my fastball, my low ground ball rate, the sharpness of my breaking ball (……), and my stamina to throw in the upper 150 km/h range even late in a game.

The Aikokai campus, located in the hills of Yakusa, Toyota City, is not surrounded by any kind of recreational facilities, and the only place Nakamura goes when he is off work is to the Aeon Mall in Nagakute City.

For me, who grew up in the countryside, a place like Yakusa, where there are no taverns or places to go for fun, suits me. Now it is my second hometown (laughs).”

On the day of the interview, just two weeks before the draft, Nakamura said, “I don’t feel any special tension.

The team that picks me is the team of my destiny. My goal is not to become a professional player, but to play an active role in the pros, and that is what I have been training for. I want to become a player who gives people dreams and hopes, like Yakult’s Munetaka Murakami (24), who played with me in the Samurai Japan team.

Among this year’s draft picks, who are more likely to be raw material rather than immediate starters, these three players are expected to make a big leap forward.

From the November 1-8, 2024 issue of FRIDAY