BILLINGS – For decades, baseball’s most famous struggle has remained unchanged: Batters facing down fast-moving pitchers, trying to make solid contact with the ball.

But a new innovation in bat design is changing the game so far this Major League Baseball season, providing offensive players with an edge in an increasingly difficult sport.

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The new design is the same length and uses the same amount of wood but shifts a majority of the weight to where the ball will likely make contact with the bat.

Many of the New York Yankees players tested out the new bat during a game against the Milwaukee Brewers, hitting a record-breaking 9 homers.

D-Bat Billings owner and former MLB player Brandon Wood said he’s excited about what the new equipment means for the sport.

“Hitting a baseball has got to be the hardest thing to do in sports,” Wood said. “Round ball, round bat coming in at 100 miles an hour, so I like seeing any sort of growth that could mean for the sport.”

Wood added that hitting has always been a challenge for batters in the league and that it’s only gotten more difficult as the quality of pitchers has increased.

“The pitching was, what I thought amazing back when I played, and has only gotten better,” Wood said. “When I watch a game now, you see the starting pitcher is 97-98 miles an hour. When I played, the closer was 97-98 miles an hour.”

But with the new ‘torpedo’ bat design, many are speculating that batters are going to have a significant advantage going forward, and the design creator has ties to Montana.

The design was created by Aaron Leanhardt, now a coach with the Miami Marlins, who spent one year coaching at Dawson Community College in Glendive.

Leanhardt has an interesting past, attending MIT and becoming a physicist before following his love of baseball and applying for the job in Eastern Montana.

“When I saw his resume I was confused,” said former Dawson Community College head coach Chris Lewis. “Honestly, there was stuff on there that I didn’t understand.”

Still, Lewis knew Leanhardt could make an immediate impact on his staff, so he offered him the job. Lewis said the program made immediate progress with Leanhardt on staff.

“He just looks at everything differently,” Lewis said. “It was just apparent that his work ethic was unlike anything I’ve been around in my 27, 28 years as a coach.”

Lewis recognized how special Leanhardt’s abilities were and encouraged him for apply for any and all jobs he was interested in. It took just one year for the Yankees to scoop him up.

“My job as a head coach is to move on our assistant coaches to better opportunities, so I was like, 'Look, you need to apply for any job you might be interested in',” Lewis said. “I wasn’t surprised one bit when he told me about the Yankees job.”

And now, Leanhardt’s different perspective is taking the baseball world by storm. In an interview in Miami, Leanhardt gave credit to the batters, explaining that this new bat took time to develop.

“Well, this has definitely been a process that took two years to get to this point,” Lenhart said. “It’s definitely been surreal the last couple of days, but at the end of the day it’s about the batter, not the bat.”

Regardless, new players and teams have now tested out the bats and had some early success. On Monday night, Elly De La Cruz homered for the Reds in a contest against the Texas Rangers.

More proof that the invention of the ‘torpedo’ bat may change the game forever.

“I don’t think it’s going to be a splash in the pan,” Lewis said. “Just because if you think about it, it’s a pretty simple idea now with some proof and physics behind it.”

Wood agreed, stating that he believes it won’t be long before these new bats appear in Little League dugouts across the country.

“Whatever they’re doing on TV, I feel like the young kids are going to do,” Wood said.