Last season showed growth in batting

Ryo Ota joined Orix The Buffaloes as the first pick in the 2018 draft. Although he has struggled with injuries since turning pro, he has steadily built up his strength and has grown to the point where he can play mainly in the first team in his sixth season in 2024. Last season, he won a place in the first team at the start of the season and played in a career-high 91 games. He showed a different side to his past performances, batting .288 with Home Run and 40 RBI in 369 at-bats. In this article, we will look at the data to determine the characteristics of Ota's batting.

His strength against fastballs is among the best in the league

Ota's batting average of .288 last season was the sixth best among 42 Pacific League players who had at least 300 at-bats. One of the reasons he was able to achieve such a high batting average in the league is his strength against fastball. Last season, his fastball average against fastballs was .339, over 30%, and his batting average of .359 against speedballs over 150 km/h, second best in the league, shows how strong he is against fastballs.

Compared to before, the ball can now be hit at a wider angle.

Another characteristic of batting is the change in the direction of the ball. Last season, Ota, who is a right-handed hitter, hit the ball to left field, which is the pulling direction, and the percentage of balls hit decreased. For the first time in his career, he dropped below 30 percent, and instead focused on hitting the ball in the opposite direction from center fielder. He has never been an extreme pull hitter in the past, but it is believed that he continued to bat in the opposite direction last season after a good performance.

Hit fastball in the opposite direction and breaking ball in the opposite direction

While continuing to focus on the direction of the batted ball, let's look next at how hit was released. hit If we divide the hitting direction of fastball and breaking ball, a tendency to hit fastball in the opposite direction and breaking ball in the pulling direction appears. As mentioned above, Ota had a high batting average against fastball last season, but this was mainly generated by hitting from center fielder in the opposite direction. This trend is also more pronounced when limited to long balls. He is able to hit long balls in the opposite direction because he "flies" the ball hard enough, rather than simply swinging at fastballs and letting them fly to the right.

Ota's forte is hitting long balls in the opposite direction

He hit 10 of his 25 home runs last season to right field, and his .587 slugging percentage was the third-highest in the league last season. In addition, 8 out of 10 captures fastball. Ota's ability to bounce this fastball back in the opposite direction and turn it into a long hit is the true essence of Ota. Jackson pitcher 's 156 km/h fastball against Yokohama DeNA on June 5 and Seigi Tanaka pitcher 's 152 km/h straight into the right field stands against Hokkaido Nippon-Ham on September 6 are some of the most iconic moments of his batting last season.

Last season, in his sixth year of high school, Ota proved that the bat he has been honing can be used in the first team. However, it was also a season in which the team failed to win its fourth consecutive league title due to the poor performance of the batting lineup. This season will be a year in which he will not only aim to establish himself as a regular but also try to regain the pennant. His start was smooth, and in March, he was selected as a member of the "Ragzas Samurai Japan Series 2025" and experienced the national team stage for the first time since entering the professional ranks. He has been in starting line-up appearances since the start of the regular season, helping his team lead the way with his strong hitting. Will the young warrior, who foreshadows a further leap forward, become a symbol of the revival of the fierce bull batting line? We will continue to pay attention to their success.

*All figures in the text and table are as of April 13, 2025.

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