"98 miles per hour is the fastest I've ever gone in my life!"

Lotte's pitcher, Chariel Radney, has made three appearances in the minor league regular season so far, using his powerful fastball as his main weapon.

He is a lefty who will play for Lotte as a developmental player this season and was born on March 27, 2005. The Marines In pitcher of Haruya Tanaka and Yuto Yoshikawa are in the same grade.

Radney made his second-team regular season debut on May 24 in a game against the Seibu Lions minor league. In the Seibu Lions farm team game that day, he pitched in the 8th inning with the score 4-6, got Ryosuke Kodama to grounder to third on the first pitch at 150 km/h fastball, and although Ryosuke Korezawa rebounded the first pitch of the 150 km/h fastball to right, he flied out to center off Masayuki Kuwahara on the first pitch on the second pitch, a 147 km/h fastball, and finally swung Sowa Yokota struck out on a curveball from 2 strike to 129 km/h. In his debut appearance, he pitched 1 inning and 7 pitches, allowing 1 hit, 1 strike out, and no runs. Five of his seven pitches were fastball power pitches.

Radney reflected on fastball in Seibu Lions Lions' minor league game that day, saying, "My initial thought was to throw aggressively into strike zone, and I was able to do that while also having power."

breaking ball appear to be slider and curves. When asked about his repertoire of pitches and his weapons, he told me, "It's not slider, it's a cutter, and I'm most confident in my cutter."

Radney took the mound in the 7th inning of a 0-0 game against Hiroshima on May 30. He took the lead off Shunsuke Tamura with a 1 strike to 148 km fastball on the second pitch, followed by Atsumu Nishikawa with a 3 ball 1 strike to 148 km fastball on the fifth pitch, and finally Ren Hirakawa with a 3 ball 2 strike to 149 km fastball on the seventh pitch, striking out struck out on the next pitch.

In his third appearance, on June 4, Rakuten Eagles against the second team, he got the first Kei Mizukami to fly out to left on the fifth fastball pitch from 3 balls to 1 strike, the next Yuya Kishimoto to fly out to second on the first fastball pitch, and the last Toshiya Osakae to fly out to first on the second fastball pitch from 1 ball, putting three men away without danger, and six of his eight pitches were fastball on that day, too.

So far, Radney has pitched 3 games and 3 innings, with 1 covered hit, 2 strike out, 0 BB, 0 runs, ERA 0.00.

Radney has been in Japan for four months since arriving on January 28th. When asked what he's learning about Japanese baseball, he revealed, "In my experience so far, hitter tend to swing early, so my current goal is to use that to my advantage, throw as many strike as possible, and hopefully get hitter to make mistakes."

Radney has a large, sturdy build with a big butt. When asked what he focuses on when building his physique, he said, "What I focus on is not getting injured. I also make sure I don't get sick."

His future goal is to become pitcher pitcher "aggressively attacks opponents and can win games as a starter." To get closer to that goal, he will gain experience in the minor leagues.

(Pitcher pitcher interpreter: Chariel Radney interpreter: Rafael Fernandez)

Interview and text by Yuta Iwashita