Don't look now, but Kotaro Kiyomiya is suddenly swinging a hot bat.

The 23-year-old was right in the middle of the action as the last-place Hokkaido Nippon Ham Fighters pulled off a road sweep of the Fukuoka SoftBank Hawks over the weekend, with at least a hit and an RBI in all three games at PayPay Dome.

He especially drew praise from manager Tsuyoshi Shinjo for the home run he hit on a low fastball from Shota Takeda in Saturday’s victory.

“Kiyomiya’s home run today, I just said ‘wow,’ Shinjo said, according to Nikkan Sports. “I was surprised, that might be the best home run I’ve seen by a Japanese player.”

Takeda’s pitch was 151 kph around the knees. The lefty hitting Kiyomiya got a good swing on it and sent it beyond the home run terrace and into the regular seats in right field in Fukuoka.

“It was low, but it felt good when I hit it, so I thought it had a chance to go out,” Kiyomiya said, per Nikkan Sports.

No one has ever doubted Kiyomiya’s ability to hit home runs. His problem has been getting the ball in the air enough to do it and playing well enough overall to earn himself more at-bats. Kiyomiya has power, but power on its own does not always count for much.

Kiyomiya has not had a lot of success since seven teams vied for his rights during the 2017 draft, but he’s in the middle of a stretch that may show it's still too early to give up on him just yet.

Kiyomiya hit an RBI double against the Hawks on Sunday to extend his run of games with at least one RBI to five straight — and he hit home runs in three of those contests. He is also currently on a seven-game hitting streak and has reached base in nine straight contests.

“I’m staying prepared every day and keeping my body ready,” Kiyomiya said Saturday. “Every day is different, so I think it’s an accumulation of everything.”

Kiyomiya is 10-for-32 (.313) with four home runs and six RBIs in nine games this month.

The sample size is too small to make any sweeping determinations, but Kiyomiya has already looked better in 2022 than he has previously in his career.

He’s batting .245 and has a team-high 11 home runs — all solo shots — and 23 RBIs. Kiyomiya is tied for fourth in home runs in the Pacific League. His .842 on-base plus slugging percentage puts him in a tie for 12th (with Hanshin Tigers star Teruaki Sato) among NPB players with at least 200 at-bats.

Kiyomiya may not be setting NPB ablaze, but for a player who began the year batting .198 with 21 home runs across three top-team seasons and did not even play for the big club in 2021, he’s hotter than the sun.

Kiyomiya got his fair share of playing time on the farm last season, and perhaps the adjustments he made there and the at-bats he has been getting this year have helped push his game forward. There is a long road to travel, but Kiyomiya seems to be improving and can still carve out a place for himself — if not more — with the Fighters.

Shinjo had Kiyomiya in his sights shortly after being named manager in October and “Big Boss” instructed the youngster to lose weight for the 2022 season, which Kiyomiya did.

A more tangible change is Kiyomiya's skyrocketing fly ball rate, which is 67.8% so far this season, while his ground ball rate is just 28.2% (per Deltagraphs). Kiyomiya's fly ball and ground ball rates were both in the mid-40s the last two seasons. Kiyomiya has a 10.9% home run to fly ball rate, 15th among hitters with 200 at-bats, according to Deltagraphs.

He has already surpassed his previous career high in home runs — seven — and has a lot of games remaining to take his total even higher.

Kiyomiya, however, has done almost all of his damage with the bases empty.

He's batting .316 with 11 home runs and 11 RBIs with no one on base versus .163 with 12 RBIs in all other situations. Kiyomiya is batting just .183 with runners in scoring position.

The Fighters are building for the future and the time is now for Kiyomiya to show Shinjo and, probably more importantly, general manager Atsunori Inaba, he should be part of the plan.

He was drafted to great fanfare but has yet to live up to the hype, spending 2021 on the farm team, where he hit 19 home runs, albeit with a .199 average, in 392 at-bats. Shinjo has promised to give the Fighters players plenty of chances to impress this season and maybe this is the year Kiyomiya makes the most of his opportunity.

The past week-plus has shown the slugger has potential and the weeks ahead will show if he has the ability to be consistent and take his game even higher.