In the spring of 2001, then-sophomore Toritani led the Tokyo Big6 Baseball League in all three Triple Crown categories (batting average, home runs, runs batted in), tying current Saitama Seibu Lions third baseman Taketoshi Gotoh as the fastest player (by academic year) to win Triple Crown honors in the history of the league.

Toritani drew 19 combined walks and hit-batters in the spring 2003 season as a senior, a Tokyo Big6 record (later broken by then-Rikkyo University outfielder Yuichi Tabata in 2004).

He got the first base hit of his career off left-hander Yukinaga Maeda in the eighth inning of the opener against the Yomiuri Giants on April 2.

However, struggling to make contact with the ball on a consistent basis, Toritani was replaced by Fujimoto in the sixth game of the season and saw most of his playing time at third base until Fujimoto left the team to play for Japan in the 2004 Athens Olympics, hitting his first career home run off then-Yokohama BayStars right-hander Kazumasa Azuma on May 27 and recording his first career stolen base against the BayStars on July 19.

As luck would have it, Fujimoto struggled with his hitting upon rejoining the Tigers after the Olympic Games, and Toritani got most of the starts at shortstop for the remainder of the season.

During one stretch from June 1 to 3, he hit a two-run home run to give his team the lead in the first game against the Tohoku Rakuten Golden Eagles, a solo home run and an RBI double against Fukuoka SoftBank Hawks ace Kazumi Saito in the second, and a walk-off hit against Hawks right-hander Yoshiaki Fujioka in the third.

Toritani replaced center fielder Norihiro Akahoshi as the team's leadoff hitter in 2007, but struggled with this new role, hitting .273 with 10 home runs and seeing declines in almost every offensive category.

Toritani also made headlines when a Japanese tabloid reported that he had invited three women over to his hotel room while the team was staying in Tokyo during one away game stretch in September.

Toritani was one of only three players in either of the Japanese leagues (along with teammate and left fielder Tomoaki Kanemoto and Hokkaido Nippon-Ham Fighters second baseman Kensuke Tanaka) to play all 144 games without missing an inning.

He was a fast base runner (his six triples in 2008 were the third-most in the league) and rarely makes mistakes on the basepaths, but was generally passive and does not look to steal unless given the sign to do so.

Toritani has good range on the defensive end (he set a single-season Central League record for assists as a shortstop with 490 in 2006) and one of the strongest throwing arms of any NPB player at his position, routinely making plays from deep in the 5.5 hole (the area between third and short).