Roki sasaki professional#
Roki sasaki free#

With the ability to control the strike zone and attack the lower third, Sasaki’s splitter and fastball cause serious problems for hitters.

The four-pitch mix is still crazy impressive from the young Sasaki, but the split remains his go-to weapon as was the case in his perfect outing. Oftentimes, both breaking pitches were used early in counts to keep hitters honest. The slider is getting better, but he lacks the excellent command of his splitter and currently the curveball is a get-me-over change-of-speed in the upper 70s. And that he has great feel for the splitter at this stage of his career – that’s highly impressive. This pitch variation allows Sasaki to be a dominant two-pitch pitcher, as he threw only three curveballs and three sliders during the perfect outing – two pitches behind his stellar fastball and splitter. In the picture below, Sasaki fades this splitter away, applying even pressure on the ball, where he’s more worried about the pronation or the turning of his arm over, and letting the pitch run away from a left-handed batter. When this happens, the pitch takes off and darts away from righties. Sasaki displays the unique ability to manipulate the pitch and cut the splitter too, creating movement more like a slider when thrown to right-handers. This dive-bomb splitter comes in at around 91 mph and masquerades as his four-seam fastball for 50 feet before darting down into the ground. The fastball, especially knee-high, sets up his go-to pitch: a nasty splitter that batters constantly swing over the top of. Sasaki’s fastball displays late life and pops through the zone, and when he is dialed in he commands the inner and outer thirds of the plate and loves to work down in the zone. It averaged 99 MPH and touched 102 that day. Sasaki pounded the zone with a first-pitch exploding fastball in 21 of the 27 at-bats.

Sasaki masterfully filled the strike zone with 82 strikes and just 23 balls. Twenty-year-old Rōki Sasaki of the Chiba Lotte Marines tossed the first perfect game in 28 years, striking out 19 Orix Buffaloes during the game. On April 10, arguably the best pitcher in Japan and one of the best on the planet right now, dazzled. I’m going to review those four games, one in this article and the other three in the near future. What fascinated me about these is the uniqueness and similarities of each of these three starts, as well as how the quest for perfection or hitless ball by a pitcher can be achieved by three completely different approaches to pitching.

Roki sasaki professional#

His father was killed in the 2011 earthquake, tsunami and subsequent meltdown of three nuclear reactors that devastated that part of the country.Nippon Professional Baseball (NPB), Japan’s professional baseball league, has featured three no-hitters and one perfect game so far in the 2022 season. Sasaki grew up in the northeastern Japanese prefecture of Iwate.

Roki sasaki free#

Players don't need to go through the posting system if they have run up enough time in Japanese baseball to become free agents. Stories in Japan say he is unlikely to be posted for MLB clubs. It seems unlikely he will sign in the near term with any MLB team. The 20-year-old righthander has grabbed headline attention in the past several weeks, using a 100-mph fastball and a wicked splitter to keep batters off balance. He allowed two earned runs, walked three, hit two batters and gave up six hits. Sasaki worked five innings on Sunday in Chiba Lotte's 6-3 win and was credited with the victory. In the perfect game, and the eight-innings of perfection, Sasaki had 33 strikeouts in facing 51 batters. Sasaki retired 27 in the perfect game, another 24 in the eight-inning outing, and also the last batter he faced in the game prior to the perfect game. Shuhei Fukuda hit Sasaki's first pitch, which ended a streak of 52 batters retired. The game was played at the Kyocera Dome in Osaka. TOKYO - Japanese pitcher Roki Sasaki of the Chiba Lotte Marines is mortal, after all.Īfter throwing a perfect game on April 10 - the first in Japanese baseball in 28 years - and eight perfect innings on April 17 before being pulled after 102 pitches, Sasaki gave up a hit on his first pitch Sunday against the Orix Buffaloes.