20-year-old Japanese baseball phenom Roki Sasaki throws 17 consecutive perfect innings: "Just too tough"
Japan's 20-year-old phenom Roki Sasaki almost did it again. A week after pitching the first perfect game in Japanese professional baseball in 28 years, Sasaki delivered eight more perfect innings Sunday before being pulled after throwing 102 pitches.
The game was tied 0-0 when Sasaki left, and his Lotte Marines wound up losing 1-0 in 10 innings to the Nippon Ham Fighters in a Pacific League game.
Marines manager Tadahito Iguchi defended his decision to pull Sasaki.
"If you think about what's best in the long run, I thought he reached his limit today," Iguchi was quoted as saying by Japan's Kyodo news agency. "By the end of the seventh inning, he was getting close to hitting the wall."
The Ham Fighters' Chusei Mannami, who won game with his home run in 10th, explained the trials of facing Sasaki.
"(Sasaki) is just too tough," Mannami said. "The way that forkball drops, forget about it."
Sasaki struck out 14 of the 24 batters he faced, just short of the 19 strikeouts he registered in his perfect game.
Sasaki signed with the Marines out of high school and was scouted by Major League Baseball teams. He is reported to routinely touch 100 mph with his fastball. Kyodo said he was reaching 101 mph when he was pulled.
According to data obtained by CBS Sports from his Sunday start, Sasaki's fastball averaged better than 99.5 mph and featured 19.8 inches of induced vertical break and 15.4 inches of horizontal break.
Sasaki's splitter checks in at 91.2 mph with 2.30 inches of induced vertical break and 7.80 inches of horizontal break. That velocity would rank as the second fastest, trailing only Hirokazu Sawamura of the Boston Red Sox.
According to CBSSports.com, no MLB pitcher has thrown two perfect games, let alone perfect games in successive starts. Johnny Vander Meer, with the 1938 Cincinnati Reds, is the only pitcher in history to throw no-hitters in successive starts.
