Twenty-year-old perfect-game pitcher Roki Sasaki has been penciled in to start on Friday (May 6) against the SoftBank Hawks at Chiba Marine Stadium, the team revealed Monday, according to Sponicihi Annex.
The right-hander, who has dazzled pundits and players alike by averaging close to 100 mph with his fastball and demonstrating elite-level command of a very nasty splitter, leads both leagues with 60 strikeouts.
Sasaki’s streak of 17 perfect innings was snapped on the first pitch of his April 24 start, was deactivated due to fatigue on April 25, although Lotte manager Tadahito Iguchi indicated the team had already planned to give him a break from the rotation at some point.
The Friday start will be Sasaki’s first night outing of the season after being the Marines’ regular Sunday pitcher for the first five weeks of the season.
Sasaki has been treated extra carefully by the Marines since they won the right to sign him in a four-way draft-day lottery in 2019, carrying on the same work of his high school manager, Yohei Kokubo. He did not pitch in a single game in his first pro season, as the Marines said his body failed to recover sufficiently quickly from his throwing sessions.
In 2021, he made his major league debut but appeared in just 11 games, pitching on six days rest just once. On Monday, however, Sasaki said, this year’s version of himself was new and improved.
“My condition is better than it was before my last start,” he said on a day when he joined the Marines’ other starting pitchers at the club’s bayside ballpark east of Tokyo.
“I made time to get real rest as I slackened the intensity of my workouts. My body has been able to recover relatively more quickly than it did last year.”
His fastball averaged 159.8 kilometers (99.3 miles) per hour on his April 10 perfect game against the Orix Buffaloes, and 159.7 the following week against the Nippon Ham Fighters, and 159 on April 24 against Orix at Osaka Dome, where he also walked three hitters and hit two.
“It depends on the weather. It might still change, but I think he’ll be going on Fridays now,” Iguchi said.
Hawks ace Kodai Senga said he was excited to see Sasaki pitch after he returns from his break.
“His specs are just too amazing,” Senga said. “He’s a pitcher who can change the world of Japanese baseball.”
