the Hokkaido Nippon-Ham Fighters. On September 30, 2021, Saito announced he would be retiring from professional baseball after 11 years with the Fighters. Pitching style Saito is a right-handed pitcher with a compact overhand delivery that has drawn comparisons to that of current Yomiuri Giants pitcher Koji Uehara. He has excellent command and can locate his pitches to both sides of the plate, throwing an average four-seam fastball that usually sits and tops out at but complementing it with a two-seam fastball sits as well as a wide assortment of offspeed pitches. His go-to pitches are a tight slider with late movement and a forkball, but he also been known to throw a curveball and changeup. Saito has said that he is trying a new grip on his changeup for the Spring 2009 season and that increasing the velocity of his fastball has been one of his ongoing goals. Despite having a somewhat small frame at 176 cm (5 ft 9 in) and 76 kg (168 lb), Saito has excellent stamina, throwing 231 pitches in the second-round match against Kanzei High School in the National High School Baseball Invitational Tournament, 221 pitches in the finals of the West Tokyo Tournament, and 178 in the finals of the National High School Baseball Championship in his senior year of high school. Saito was dubbed "the second coming of Daisuke Araki" during his high school years (particularly before he won the national championship and became more associated with his other nicknames) for the similarities in their playing styles. Araki, a fellow alumnus of Waseda Jitsugyo High, pitched in five consecutive national tournaments during his high school career before going on to play for the Yakult Swallows and Yokohama BayStars. References External links Living people 1988 births People from Ōta, Gunma Waseda University alumni Japanese baseball players Nippon Professional Baseball pitchers Hokkaido Nippon-Ham Fighters players Baseball people from Gunma Prefecture