“Kanto Daiichi’s Sakamoto aims for aggressive swings as final batter in Koshien finals”

The bitterness of losing in the end was overwhelming. “Before I knew it, I was bowing to the Alps stands,” recalls Sakamoto Shintaro, the two-way star of Kanto Daiichi (East Tokyo), who made back-to-back appearances at the national summer tournament, reflecting on the previous year.

As a sophomore last summer, he batted third and played left field in the final against Kyoto Kokusai. Trailing by one run in the bottom of the 10th inning with two outs and the bases loaded, Manager Yonezawa Takamitsu’s instruction was, “Swing at the first pitch.” But he let it go.

Then, “I thought I swung, but I didn’t.” He found himself in an unfamiliar mental state. With the count against him, he tried to foul off a breaking ball but ended up with a half-hearted swing, striking out to become the final out.

Now, in his final summer, he steps into the left batter’s box with a renewed determination not to let hittable pitches slip away. In the third round of the East Tokyo tournament against Josai, he homered on the first pitch in the seventh inning. In the final against Iwakura, he drove the second pitch after a foul ball into the stands in the fourth inning.

Over seven games in the East Tokyo tournament, he dominated with 15 hits in 27 at-bats (a .556 average), including those two homers, and struck out zero times. “Last year’s experience paid off this year,” he says.

On the mound, the left-hander attacks hitters with a fastball topping out in the high 130s (km/h) and a sharp-breaking curve. Since last summer, he’s refined his command of the fastball inside and sharpened his breaking pitches, logging a team-high 36 innings in the East Tokyo tournament while allowing just two runs.

His elite two-way talent earned him an invite to the Japanese national high school team’s training camp, but none of that matters now. Only by returning to the blurred memory of that final stage can he truly move past the player he was before.