He won a bronze medal in the 1992 Summer Olympics before entering the Japanese professional leagues.
Ito was a phenomenon in his rookie year, going 7-2 with a 0.91 ERA in 14 games as a starter before injuring his pitching arm in July. His rookie-year slider is said to be one of the best pitches ever to be thrown in Japanese baseball history, reaching the low-90 mph range with an enormous amount of horizontal movement.[citation needed] He beat Hideki Matsui to win the 1993 Japanese rookie of the year award, even though he was only active for 3 months that year.
Despite making a brilliant debut, Ito was plagued by various injuries to his pitching arm, and did not play a single game from 1994–1995. He had surgery on his shoulder, and spent almost three years in rehabilitation before returning in 1996.

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