Rocky Sasaki (22, Chiba Lotte Marines) once again surprised America, the ‘baseball nation’, with an overwhelming pitch. 

Sasaki started in the 2023 Japan Professional Baseball Softbank Hawks home game held at ZOZO Marine Stadium in Chiba, Chiba Prefecture, Japan on the 5th and pitched 89 pitches with 1 walk, 12 strikeouts and no runs in 5 innings without a hit. 

With the start of the first inning, he allowed Akira Nakamura to walk on base after nine pitches. But he didn’t waver. He ended the inning without allowing a run with a fly ball to left field and consecutive strikeouts. After one out, he sent back Softbank’s leading batters, Kensuke Kondo and Yuki Yanagita, with strikeouts. 

In the second inning, it was a three-way offense including two strikeouts, and after two outs in the third inning, Azuki Nakamura struck out and went on base, but struck out again and did not give up a run. Following the KKK strikeout show in the 4th, Sasaki showed a perfect pitch against only three batters, including two strikeouts in the fifth.

Sasaki finished the game by passing the mound to Kojiro Sakamoto in the 6th inning, which was still 0-0. 89 pitches. He did not allow a single hit in five innings and lowered his earned run average to 0.84 from 1.00. The 12 strikeouts were the most strikeouts in a game in a season, exceeding the previous 11. 

Japan Sports Hochi said after the game, “Sasaki pitched a no-hit and no-run pitch that allowed no hits until the fifth inning. He said, “On this day, there was a strong wind of up to 17 meters per second blowing at Jojo Marine Stadium, and it was difficult to pitch, but with a 161 km fastball, the most strikeouts in a single game in a season was recorded. has been renewed,” he said.

The news of Sasaki’s strong fight reached the United States, and there was a surprising response. Van Verlander, a baseball analyst at Fox Sports in the US, said, “Rockie Sasaki continues to dominate the mound. He caught a whopping 12 strikeouts in 5 innings,” and Jason Costley, another American analyst familiar with Japanese professional baseball, said, “Sasaki recorded an average ERA of 0.84 and 50 strikeouts in 32 innings. He admired, saying, “The strikeout rate of 14.06 is phenomenal.”  토토사이트

Sasaki is a top-class prospect who has been attracting attention since high school when he threw a fastball that exceeded 160 km. On April 10, the second year of his debut in Nippon Professional Baseball, he became the youngest player in NPB (20 years and 5 months) to achieve a perfect game, and in the process set a phenomenal milestone of striking out 19 in one game and striking out 13 batters in a row.

Sasaki is in his 3rd year and is continuing an overwhelming season with an average ERA of 0.84 (3 ERA in 32 innings) in 5 games, 3 wins and no losses.