It was a shock to Shinobu Takeuchi when the pain came.  He was a twenty-three years old star whose face appeared on billboards and phone screens and bottles of shampoo.  He had won 12 games for the second year in a row, and there was still five weeks left in the season.  He was a golden man, a kid with 98 mile an hour fastball and an entourage that was growing as fast as his paycheck was being direct deposited with more money than his father had made in his entire life.

He had thrown baseballs since before he could remember, and had been drafted straight out of high school where a mere two weeks earlier he had led his team to a championship. That year, after 67 innings with his high school team, he threw another 105 innings with two Cliff Hanger minor league teams.  Then there was 154 innings the following year.  A strained forearm limited him to 95 the following year, but that was more a vacation mandated for caution’s sake than a true injury.  The following year, Takeuchi broke into the bigs, registering 170 innings in AAA/LRS tilts, and never seeing the minors again.

Two All-Star games, a Sawamura, and a Shinjinshou later, Shinobu Takeuchi’s life was flying as high as a young man’s life can fly.

Until the pain came on a 3-1 count to Sosa Kiyomizu, a pitch that resulted in Kiyomizu walking to first base, and Takeuchi walking toward the dugout, holding his elbow.  “It was a shooting pain,” he said to the press later.  “I’ve never felt like that before.”

It was enough to convince the Lupin front office to shut him down for the rest of the season.

 “I wanted to pitch,” Takeuchi said in an interview last week.  “But I knew the team was right when they said to wait.  I feel better now.  I can’t wait for the season to start again.”

Those are great words to Lupin fans, who despaired and who felt that this was the last straw that broke over the crumbled remains of the 2018 season’s back.  Lupin’s front office has already said that they expect Takeuchi to team with Akira Watanabe once again to make up one of the best young 1-2 combinations in the league this coming year.  GaijinGustavo Rivera will probably hold down the #3 slot, and the recent signing ofYoshitora Koyama, means he will probably be the #4 guy.  “It should be a great staff,” Takeuchi.  “I’m honored to be considered to be a part of it.

The team says Takeuchi has been throwing long toss and is due to throw from a mound in late December.  They say he will return as good as ever.  But you have to wonder if he will.  Shinobu Takeuchi has felt pain now.  Can you ever be the same after that?