{"id":580526,"date":"2026-02-19T05:26:28","date_gmt":"2026-02-19T05:26:28","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/580526\/"},"modified":"2026-02-19T05:26:28","modified_gmt":"2026-02-19T05:26:28","slug":"rakuten-eagles-kenta-maeda-returns-to-japan-after-11-years-welcomes-questions-from-teammates-if-theres-anything-i-can-help-with-165-wins-in-japan-and-the-us-pacific-league","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/580526\/","title":{"rendered":"[Rakuten Eagles] Kenta Maeda returns to Japan after 11 years, welcomes questions from teammates: &#8220;If there&#8217;s anything I can help with&#8230;&#8221; 165 wins in Japan and the US | Pacific League"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>[Rakuten Eagles] Kenta Maeda returns to Japan for the first time in 11 years, welcoming questions from teammates: &#8220;If there&#8217;s anything I can help with&#8230;&#8221; 165 wins in Japan and the US<\/p>\n<p class=\"_source\">Sports Hochi<\/p>\n<p>                    January 31, 2026 13:55<\/p>\n<p>            <img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/02\/20260131-OHT1I51152-L.jpg\" width=\"1200\" height=\"953\" alt=\"Kenta Maeda (left) shakes hands with Contreras (photographer: Tsuneji Sakai)\" data-wovn-src:-original-alt=\"\u30b3\u30f3\u30c8\u30ec\u30e9\u30b9\u3068\u63e1\u624b\u3092\u3059\u308b\u524d\u7530\u5065\u592a\uff08\u5de6\uff09\u3000\uff08\u30ab\u30e1\u30e9\u30fb\u583a\u3000\u6052\u5fd7\uff09\u3000\"\/><\/p>\n<p class=\"p-detail_text\">Rakuten Eagles Kenta Maeda pitcher (37) took part in a joint voluntary training session in Kanatake, Okinawa, on March 31. catch The right-hander, who has returned to the Japanese baseball world after an 11-year absence, wiped off his sweat, saying, &#8220;I had to move around yesterday, so I worked out lightly today to prepare for tomorrow.<\/p>\n<p class=\"p-detail_text\">He practiced wearing a navy blue cap with &#8220;Golden Eagle&#8221; written in white letters. &#8220;I bought it on Rakuten Eagles Market,&#8221; he said with a smile. This season will see him start anew in a new environment. &#8220;Personally, my goal is to stick to the rotation, win a lot, and pitch a lot. As a team, I want to be number one in Japan, no matter what,&#8221; he said passionately.<\/p>\n<p class=\"p-detail_text\">The experience of the right-hander, who has won 165 games in Japan and the U.S., is also valuable to the team. He welcomes questions from his teammates. I&#8217;m happy to answer questions from teammates. I don&#8217;t know if there&#8217;s much I can teach you, but I&#8217;m sure there are a lot of people out there. I&#8217;m sure there are a lot of good pitcher guys out there, and if there&#8217;s anything I can do to help, I&#8217;m open to it, while keeping my own senses in mind. I think I can learn a lot from listening to various pitcher senses and stories, so I hope we can communicate with each other.<\/p>\n<p class=\"p-detail_text\">The training camp will begin on February 1st. The veteran, who will start the first-team training camp, stated that he will be in bullpen from the first day of training camp, saying, &#8220;It&#8217;s only the first day, so normally it&#8217;s not the right time to go in, but with a new team and a new environment, I think I&#8217;ll go in bullpen to get off to a good start.&#8221;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"[Rakuten Eagles] Kenta Maeda returns to Japan for the first time in 11 years, welcoming questions from teammates:&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":580527,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2302],"tags":[5,2353,2352],"class_list":{"0":"post-580526","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-npb","8":"tag-baseball","9":"tag-nippon-professional-baseball","10":"tag-npb"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@mlb\/116095641604516729","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/580526","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=580526"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/580526\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/580527"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=580526"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=580526"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=580526"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}