The Rakuten Group operates under five brand concepts: "Noble Cause," "Noble Character," "Meticulous Preparation," "Unwavering Conviction," and "Unity." What if you mapped each of these five qualities to a player on the Tohoku Rakuten Golden Eagles? Naturally, a perfect lineup emerges. "Meticulous Preparation" goes to Yuki Matsui. The closer position demands preparation every single day regardless of whether he pitches or not, and once he takes the mound there is absolutely no room for failure. The closer's mental and physical preparation, carefully built up for the sake of the team's victory, is simple yet precise.

To deliver peak performance, maximum preparation is required. Yuki Matsui, who reached a career total of 200 saves as the youngest player in history and the 9th pitcher to achieve the milestone in professional baseball, has continued to produce results in the unforgiving closer position. He never knows when his turn will come, but every day he carefully attends to his own body, searches for what he needs to do to perform at his best, and carries out thorough preparation. You can’t serve as a closer without being “meticulously prepared.”

With a strong sense of responsibility that “taking the mound without having prepared is disrespectful to every single member of the team,” he carries the weight of being the team’s sole closer.

“Getting my body into the right condition is the most important part of preparation for me. Of course it’s different every day, so there’s no single right answer. I take myself from a baseline condition, and each day I choose what I need to do to get ready. If there’s tightness in a muscle, I’ll loosen it up. If I’ve been pitching on consecutive days, I’ll do more conditioning for my shoulder. If the day before a day game was a night game, I’ll get a little extra sleep. What I need to do to prepare changes every day, because it all comes down to the condition of my body that day, the schedule, the weather, and all kinds of things. Getting all that lined up so I know I’m ready when I go to the bullpen is what matters the most.

As for mental preparation, I feel like I’ve been able to control it to a certain degree as I’ve accumulated experience. In my early days, there were times when I wouldn’t be able to snap out of a loss of the previous day and carry the feeling over until the next day. There were lots of times when I’d fake cheerfulness so that I wouldn’t worry everyone, but eventually my mind caught up and I learned to put losses behind me. Because you just can’t go into a match with negative feelings and expect victory.

Every outing has points that went well and points that didn’t. So I try not to let my feelings be swayed by that. When things aren’t going well, I focus squarely on the reason why things aren’t going well, reflect on it, and figure out what I should focus on in practice so I can perform better. Ever since I started doing that, I’ve been able to keep my spirits up. And I learned that if I go to sleep feeling down, my condition the next day is terrible. My whole body is heavy when I get up. I can’t control the outcome of the game, but what I can do is make sure that I step up to the mound every day fully and completely prepared. Meticulous preparation is indispensable for me to deliver my best performance. The only feelings I bring to the mound are thoughts of ‘I want to retire this batter,‘ ‘I want to produce results,‘ and ‘I want to do my job properly.‘ Yesterday’s results have nothing to do with my next appearance on the mound, so I leave every other emotion behind.

There’s something I learned in the ten years since my debut, and that is that it’s my brain that drives my body. I believe controlling what’s going on in your head is also one aspect of conditioning your body. That’s why I always want to have a good mindset, to enjoy what I’m doing.”

INTERVIEW & TEXT: Chiharu Abe