[3] Together with later Tigers teammate Ryutaro Umeno, they played in the 2013 Japan-USA University Baseball Championship, where Japan won the 5-game series 3-2.
[7] He was assigned the jersey number 25, formerly owned by his Komazawa University senior, Takahiro Arai (played for the Hanshin Tigers until 2014 season).
[8] 2015 During the February spring camp in Okinawa, he showed early promise by hitting relatively well during batting practice sessions and intra-squad games.
[10] He batted .267 in all of his exhibition game appearances, and earned himself a spot in the main squad's opening day roster.
[12] He first appeared as a pinch hitter on the 7th inning of the April 2 match against the Tokyo Yakult Swallows, where he got hit by a wild pitch by Tetsuya Yamamoto.
[13] On July 24, he homered in his second straight game and became the first rookie in franchise history to accomplish the feat since Akinobu Okada in 1980.
[14] Two days later, he notched his first career modasho(3 hits in a game) against Yokohama and became the first rookie to accomplish the feat since Shunsuke Fujikawa in 2010.
[15] 2016 He hit the first home run of the season as a pinch hitter in the match against Yokohama DeNA Baystars on April 3 (Yokohama Stadium), and hit the second home run as a pinch hitter in the next match against the Yomiuri Giants (Tokyo Dome) on April 7.
He played in 28 main squad games, but he failed to hit a home run for the first time since he became a professional, and his batting average remained at .077.
[5] Eventually, he became known as the triple three right-handed slugger (batting average above .300, hit 30 homers since high school, and stole 30 bases).