Ryota Ito

Ryota Ito (伊東 亮大)

• Bats Left, Throws Left
• Height 6' 4", Weight 202 lb.

• School Musashi University
• High School Toko Gakuen High School

• Born July 27, 1989 in Yamato, Kanagawa Japan

BR register page

Biographical Information

Ryota Ito played in Nippon Pro Baseball and for the Japanese national team. His brother Kota Ito had a short pro career.

Ryota hit .462 as a sophomore in college and made Best Nine. After college, he played for Nippon Paper in the industrial leagues and made Best Nine there as well. With Japan's Bronze Medal team in the 2014 Asian Games, he split DH with Takeshi Kunimoto. He went 4 for 4 with 2 doubles, a triple and 5 RBI against Mongolia and was 0 for 3 in his other game. He tied Kunimoto for the highest slugging percentage on the team and tied for 4th in RBI.

The Rakuten Golden Eagles took him in the 7th round of the 2014 NPB draft. He batted .237/.314/.342 in 69 minor league games that year. He also played briefly for the top team, hitting as many homers (2) in 8 games there as he did in 69 on the farm; his first hit in NPB was a homer off Ken Togame. He hit .273/.304/.591 in his eight games. He was one of the taller position players in NPB annals.

Back on the farm, he slipped to .167/.232/.278 in 2016 and rebounded to .281/.338/.453 in 2017, his final season.

Sources

• 2014 Asian Games site
• Japanese Wikipedia