Photo/Illutration Yuto Hara, who trains himself as a switch-pitcher, is captured in Tokyo’s Ota Ward on March 5. (Ryujiro Komatsu)

An 11-year-old baseball player has a warning for Los Angeles Angels' two-way superstar Shohei Ohtani: “I will play against him and win at some point in time.”

That's the bold assertion of Yuto Hara, a sixth-grader in Tokyo, who already goes Ohtani one better by possessing "three-way skills" on the diamond.

Yuto, an elementary school sixth-grader, can pitch from both sides of the mound. At the plate, he has already slugged more than 100 home runs in his young career. 

Yuto took center stage on March 5 at a practice game using rubber balls at the Tamagawa Ryokuchi ballpark in Tokyo’s Ota Ward.

He took the mound as the ace pitcher of the Funabashi Phoenix, which plays out of the capital’s Setagaya Ward, in the middle of the game.

Mixing right-handed fastballs along with slower offerings to keep the hitters off-balance, Yuto held the five batters he faced hitless.

The young athlete, however, expressed regret following the game, given his “poor” batting performance marked by just two infield hits.

Yuto threw exclusively right-handed that day but is famed for his switch-pitching prowess. 

He started playing baseball at age 4, when his father, Keiji, now 43, took him to the Tokyo Dome for the first time.

The boy was impressed watching Ohtani, who then played for the Hokkaido Nippon-Ham Fighters, take batting practice. Ohtani rifled a line drive that landed into the middle of the left field stands.

“That guy was great,” Yuto recalled. “I wanted to play baseball, too.”

He has since honed his skills at a park near his home in Tokyo’s Shinagawa Ward. Even when he was younger, Yuto made it a habit to run to his day-care nursery. He has fully immersed himself in baseball since he entered elementary school.

His switch-pitching abilities were born by accident.

In the spring of his fourth year at elementary school, he suffered a minor injury to his right elbow, which forced him to refrain from pitching for three months.

With his right arm temporarily unavailable, he tried pitching left-handed and found he could fling the ball at a speed faster than 90 kph.

The ambidextrous pitching was possible because Yuto had undertaken a weekly personal baseball training regimen since he attended a day nursery.

He had been advised to practice as a right-handed player and a left-handed player alternatively every other month in  his pitching and hitting to maintain a balance between both sides of his body.

After recovering from his elbow injury, Yuto started pitching with his right arm again. But he continued training both arms and his maximum fastball speed reached 115 kph from both sides of the mound.

Though he is throwing his fastball 8 kph faster with his left hand from two months previously, Yuto has yet to pitch as a southpaw in official games.

He is currently testing his left arm from the mound in practice games. Yuto said remaining challenges to overcome are control and fielding.

KOSHIEN TOURNAMENT, MLB GOALS

Throwing from either side allows pitchers to put less wear and tear on the arm not being used. 

In addition to his switch-pitching skills, Yuto continues to terrorize opponents at the plate. He has hit a total of 110 home runs since second grade, with his batting average for official games from November topping .600.

For now, the schoolboy has his sights set on playing in the grueling National High School Baseball Championship at the prestigious Hanshin Koshien Stadium in Hyogo Prefecture.

“I would be able to do double duty by pitching as a righty and lefty by myself,” said Yuto. “I will be refining my skills further to pitch in the Koshien tournament.”

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