Professional baseball player DeNA's Keita Sano is working on improving his batting form with an eye toward hitting balls hard to the left field at a camp held in Ginowan City, Okinawa Prefecture.
Last season, Sano's batting average was .264, which was below the .300 level that had lasted for three years, and in the middle of the season, he was sent as a pinch hitter in his own at-bat, making it a frustrating season.
One of the reasons for the poor performance was that nearly 50% of batted balls were pulled toward right field, and infielders from other teams were shifted extremely to the right, resulting in poor hit performance. Even if the ball was hit, it would often hit the fielder in the face.
For this reason, Sano is working on improving his batting form so that he can hit balls strongly to the left.
For the second day's practice, he changed from his previous ``closed stance,'' in which he steps his right foot closer to home plate, to a ``square stance,'' in which he places both feet parallel to each other, and hit 78 balls, accounting for about 40% of his hits. It was flying to the left.
According to Sano, by taking a "square stance," he was able to swing in a variety of directions than before, so he carefully checked his form as he swung.
Sano said, ``I was able to bat close to how I envisioned it.I'm going to start playing in real matches, so I want to be able to hit the ball even better.''