to hit double digit homers as cleanup since Osamu Hamanaka in 2003. As he fell into a slump in July however, the cleanup position was eventually assigned to the newly hired import Jeffry Marte on August 10. He still continued to appear in the line up, but saw fewer plate appearances after that. He managed to appear in all 143 games of the season, and despite topping the team in RBI and home runs (76 RBI, 14 HRs), he also topped both leagues in fielding errors (20) as a 3rd baseman. He also played in most of the games in the post-season Climax series, and hit the winning home run on top of the 9th during game 3 against the Giants, which turned out to be the team's only win in the final stage before getting eliminated. His season performance earned him a 17 million pay raise, which brought his annual salary to 47 million yen. 2020 He had more competition for the infield positions this season with the entry of new import Justin Bour. And despite batting 0.378 in the pre-season games, he was benched for a few matches after the season opener as Jeffrey Marte played 3rd base. Only after Marte suffered from an injury on July 4 did he become a regular in the line up, and he continued to be the main clean-up man (4th batter) all throughout the pandemic-shortened season. He suffered from a minor slump in August, but from then on, he continued to bat above 0.290. By early September, he surpassed his previous home run record of 14 and was even in the running for the league's home run king title. But despite his good hit production, he did not manage a single home run for 18 straight matches in October and was overtaken for the title by 3 homers. He finished with a 0.288 average for 116 matches, and topped the team in RBIs and home runs with 85 (3rd in league) and 28 (2nd in league) respectively. He also finished 6th in the league in OPS with 0.918, and 2nd in slugging percentage with 0.560. He received a 53 million yen pay raise which more than doubled his previous salary for his best season performance yet. This made him the 3rd home-grown player in Hanshin history to reach the 100 million yen pay bracket within 5 years from his debut (next