Between the rain and the expected low after Friday’s high of the Roki Sasaki-Yoshinobu Yamamoto showdown, Saturday was a damp day for pro baseball action. It was another rainy day in Hiroshima, while two games under roofs in Hokkaido and Nagoya were played, and for the Hanshin Tigers found themselves in first place.
Sasaki’s sweeper
OK. I never heard of a slider being referred to as a sweeper until Shohei Ohtani struck out Mike Trout with one to end the WBC. But Yu Darvish and Ohtani were busy helping their teammates master it in February and March, and in his first game after he started against Mexico in Japan’s WBC semifinal, Sasaki broke off three of them.
Credit to website CoCoKaraNext for talking about it last week and predicting we’d see more of them, because when Sasaki held Orix to one hit over seven innings and struck out 10 of the first 12 batters he faced, it was instantly a weapon. His fastball so far this year has been a little better than it was a year ago, and his command of the splitter better as well, so it hardly seems fair. But Sasaki had guys swinging out of their shoes on pitches they missed by a foot.
Sasaki and Yamamoto comps
Saturday morning’s news was about MLB comps for Sasaki and Yamamoto as explained by writers covering MLB relaying what they’ve heard from U.S. teams, while mentioning there were scouts from eight MLB teams in Chiba. The way the headline was written, it sounded like the scouts were telling reporters what their comps were.
It’s not like this never happens, but it rarely happens in a public setting where they might be overheard. Instead, it quoted The Los Angeles Times’ Dylan Hernandez as saying an American League general manager had called Sasaki’s fastball the best in the world and better than Jacob DeGrom’s, while Yamamoto’s pitchability was on a par with Zach Greinke.
Continue reading NPB news: April 15, 2923
