February 21, 2024 11:00 Hanshin Inoue playing long tee (February 2, 2024)
In my first year at the company, I’m running around covering my first Okinawa camp. Little by little, I’m getting used to counting the number of free shots over the fence.
Among them, outfielder Hirodai Inoue (22), a fifth-year high school graduate, is impressing Ginoza with his particularly powerful batting. They also climbed over the Hanshin Tigers “Welcome” sign on the left field lawn and over an estimated 130 meter fence to the top of the ball net.
When I was looking at the tee at batting practice, I noticed that he was swinging his bat in a unique way. A mascot bat for practice “barrel bat” with a bulge between the grip and the core. The aim is to let the bat come out from the inside, and he seems to be using it from the off-season.
Despite my limited understanding as a liberal arts student with no experience in sports, the kindness with which he explained it to me really stuck with me. For the sake of explanation, the bat is a plastic bottle containing Sanpin tea. He passionately taught me the difference between the center of gravity and swing trajectory compared to a regular bat. “Don’t let the bat go too far. There’s weight in front of you, so it won’t go too far.” This was an effort to improve the probability, which was an issue last season.
During the off-season, he is doing independent training with Giants Okamoto, DeNA Maki, and others. I brought a barrel bat to each independent training session. “We exchanged opinions about how we were doing things, and told them that this is how I do things.” They came to Ginoza after having a meaningful exchange of opinions with the Central League main guns.
He is eagerly trying to improve his hitting. “It’s only been two or three months since I started, so I think it’s important to go through the whole year.” The competition for positions on both wings is becoming more intense with Morishita, Maekawa, Noguchi, Fukushima, Mises, and Noisy. This season, in its fifth year, I would like to see the ever-evolving long-range gun mass-produce arches at Koshien.[Hanshin person in charge = Mariko Muramatsu]
This column has back issues.
2024-02-21 04:59:54
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