Gosuke Katoh wrapped up what may have been the wildest week of his career in the basement at Tokyo Dome. As he stood among a group of reporters in a quiet corner of the Big Egg — while on the field level, Hokkaido Nippon Ham Fighters fans were still singing in the stands to celebrate a blowout victory over the Yomiuri Giants — Katoh tried to put his latest achievements into words.

He was briefly interrupted by Tsuyoshi Shinjo, the team’s flashy and loquacious manager, who strode by and loudly quipped, in English, “Good job, man!”

That was an understatement to say the least.

An oblique injury in March delayed the start of Katoh's journey in Japanese baseball, but he is making up for lost time. Katoh, who had a brief stint with the Toronto Blue Jays in MLB in 2022, finally made his NPB debut on May 25 and has been red-hot since. He has four home runs and seven RBIs in eight NPB games. His single against the Giants in the third inning on Sunday extended his hitting streak since his debut to eight games — the longest by a rookie to begin a career since the start of the NPB draft in 1966.

"It's been wild," Katoh told The Japan Times. "It's only been about a week and a half, and it's been the craziest week and a half of my life. There were a lot of ups and downs throughout this whole year, mostly down, so it's good to have some sort of success individually, but also be able to contribute to the team finally."

Katoh was drafted by the Fighters last year but is a rookie in name only. Before joining Nippon Ham, he was selected by the New York Yankees in the second round of the MLB draft in 2013 and spent time with three other organizations — the San Diego Padres, the Blue Jays and the New York Mets. He made his MLB debut with the Blue Jays on April 9, 2022, and appeared in seven more games that year — all with Toronto.

Now the 28-year-old is trying to adjust to life in NPB and knows he has a lot to learn.

"I feel good right now," Kato said. "But I'm still learning Japanese baseball, Japanese baseball is still learning me. So it's like a trial period.

"I'm doing well right now, but we all know in the baseball industry, it's never going to be like this forever. I'm just going along with the flow. Right now, that's kind of what I'm trying to do, embracing everything, trying to learn as much as possible, trying to be a sponge as much as possible."

Katoh has four multihit contests in eight games. He had a two-homer night against the Tokyo Yakult Swallows at home on May 31, and his first three-hit performance came against the Giants on Sunday. He is 13-for-32 overall and also has three doubles and a stolen base.

Katoh was selected for the hero interview after his performance against the Swallows and admitted on the podium, with over 27,000 fans hanging on his every word, that it was the most nervous he had been in a baseball stadium. That experience also highlighted his unique position in the game, as he also switched to English amid his remarks in Japanese.

Katoh straddles the line between a homegrown and foreign player. He was born to Japanese parents and speaks the language. He is also an American who was born and mostly raised in California — he lived in Japan from ages 3 to 6. One of the things that sparked his love of baseball happened when his father took him to a Padres game when he was 6-years-old and he saw Ichiro Suzuki patrolling the outfield for the visiting Seattle Mariners.

Katoh wrote in The Players Tribune in 2019 that his family just moved back from Japan and he only spoke Japanese and was having a difficult time.

"He was the only Asian player on the field," Kato wrote. "He was different — someone I related to."

On Sunday at Tokyo Dome, he joked with Cuban catcher Ariel Martinez in English, then switched to Japanese to include a Fighters trainer, linking the trio in conversation.

“I can communicate with both the foreigners and the Japanese guys,” he said. “My teammates have been so supportive of me. They know what I'm going through. I'm just glad they accepted me as one of their own.”

It has been a learning process for Katoh. He has no immediate family in Japan and is adjusting to Japanese culture on and off the diamond.

“It's been a crash course, but there are bits and pieces from the United States that I can take,” he said. “For example, learning how to deal with failure, learning how to deal with the pressure. All those things just kind of come from, not just American baseball, but life.

“I'm used to stuff like that, but the daily life is completely different, the culture is different. In those terms, it's a completely different world for me.”

It is a plight almost every foreign player in NPB understands, even if it comes with a twist for Katoh.

“I know the language, I know the culture, but I'm still having this much trouble getting into the culture,” he said. “I can't even imagine what some of the foreign guys ... they come and they have to get used to Japanese culture as well as perform. It's been pretty lonely, but I'm glad I'm able to contribute to this team.”

Katoh’s dual citizenship meant he had to go through the draft to join an NPB club, instead of signing as a free agent like other foreign players. Shinjo, a former MLB player himself, urged Nippon Ham to draft the infielder, who spent almost a decade in the minors working toward his goal of reaching MLB. New York Times reporter Brad Lefton asked Shinjo about his motivations, reporting that the Fighters manager thought, “Katoh’s hunger could be a great motivator for his young, developing team.”

Katoh was called up to the Mets’ MLB squad in May but did not play before being sent to Triple-A. When the Fighters drafted him with their third selection, the possibility of playing in Japan entered his mind.

“When I got drafted, I was still with the Mets,” Katoh said. “I've been thinking about getting up to the big leagues for the majority of my life, so like on a flip of a switch, going to Japan, it was really tough. I really had to think about it. Because I never really thought about it until the opportunity came up. It was literally right after I got drafted I started thinking about it.”

Katoh also saw the possibility of Japan making him a better player.

“I came over here to basically elevate my game,” he said. “I'm obsessed with it. I felt like I've used all the technology, all the coaches, all the resources I had in the States to get to where I am now. I kind of felt like a ceiling. So I came over here hoping to find new coaching, find new methods, theories, and test them out. That's where I'm at. I just want to better myself.”

Katoh’s game has translated very early on, despite the differences in style between MLB and NPB.

“Pitching is totally different,” he said. “Defense is played completely different here, a lot more small ball, too, especially our team. Those things are very, very different.”

NPB pitching, of course, requires the biggest adjustment.

“Over there, it's just like power against power,” Kato said. “Here, it's batter against the catcher, and can the pitcher execute? That's been my initial take on Japanese baseball — six games into my career.”

Katoh’s adjustments have worked out so far, but the infielder understands he is just at the beginning.

“I was 6 years old when I started playing baseball,” he said. “It took me 22 years to get to the big leagues. So it's like it took me 22 years to learn to be a pro. Now I need to learn those 22 years over here too. So it's been tough. The results are the results, but there is still a lot to do.”