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| Hirose Ryuta 2B (Softbank Hawks) |
As a fellow of Keio fans since 2021, I've known much about Hirose Ryuta. The third-rounder of Hawks back in the Draft 2023 last year was really giving such an impressive performance during in his farm league era. As a rookie himself, he already recorded AVG .250 with 42 H and 14 RBI along with 2 HR and 1 SB in the Western League. And start by this Interleague season, he got called up to the first string together with his senior back in the Keio era, Yanagimachi Tatsuru. A rare pair of Keio boys in the first string, I guess.
Although the start for him was such a tough way as everyone having some expectations due to his record back then in the Tokyo Big 6 as the most homerun hitter in the league history, tied the 4th rank aside with Okada Akinobu, who once was a Waseda alumni too. Yes, perhaps Okada might be feels some thrills when he saw that homerun launched by Hirose—a new generation that recorded the history aside with his one lol.
But then you see, I do have known him at least a little bit. He's the most leisure person I've ever seen in my life. He loves to do something on his own-pace. He was a heavy sleeper while having a sleep time over 12 hours per day back in his college era. He loves to walk around hunting for some cafe to have a pleasure time with.
All of that, he is very confidence of what he does and believe in the process. He's patient. And that thing is what brought Keio up to the Fall League's champion and leading them to the Meiji Jingu's champion last year. He was grown up into such a persistence leader that leads his teammates to approach the top of the college baseball in Japan.
And all of that efforts, comes into a breakthrough of his career.
As what you might have seen in the game last night, his swing was contacted through a high-course fastball. For your information, that was his sweet spot right there. He loves that course, and he often launched that course right to the stand behind outfield area. Although he can also hit a homerun by such an odd ball course—and we often called him 'Hentai Homer' due to that odd thing. I think it's the right choice to take him to the Hawks, he might be the next Yanagita Yuki in some terms lol.
This homerun seems like a small count compared to another's homerun record, but since he was among the lineup of Tokyo Big 6 homerun hitter who also became the legend in NPB with many counts of homerun such as Takahashi Yoshinobu and Tabuchi Kouichi, this is only the start of his journey to become the new generation of Tokyo Big 6 that will break the record again in the future.