Roki Sasaki (21) of the Chiba Lotte Marines of Nippon Professional Baseball surpassed 100 strikeouts for the season in his 11th start.
Sasaki started the game against the Seibu Lions on Friday at ZOZO Marine Stadium in Chiba, Japan, and pitched eight innings of five-hit ball, striking out 11 to earn the win.
With 11 strikeouts, Sasaki became the first pitcher to reach 100 strikeouts this season. The no-hitter was her sixth win of the season, lowering her ERA to 1.50. He moved into first place in both ERA and strikeouts (107).
The highlight was KKK’s escape from a huge first-inning jam. He gave up a double to left field to top hitter Shuta Donosaki, and a surprise bunt single to third base to Sosuke Genda to put runners on first and third. A wild pitch followed, advancing the runners to second and third with nobody out.
The Seibu 3-5 center field lineup turned into the KKK. McKinnon and Nakamura struck out swinging on sliders and Takagi struck out swinging on a forkball to end the inning.
He struck out the leadoff batter on three pitches in the second inning, then gave up a hit two batters later and got a swinging strikeout on a 160-mph fastball to end the inning. In the third, a swinging strikeout, pitcher’s interference, and fielder’s choice ended the inning.
With one out in the fourth, he struck out Takagi on a swinging strike with a 162 mph fastball. With two outs, he allowed a double to right, but got the next batter to fly out to first to end the inning.
In the fifth, a grounder to second, a grounder to first, and a fly out to center ended a three-run inning. The ball didn’t leave the infield. In the sixth, he gave up a single but retired the side in order on a strikeout and two infield grounders. Allowed an infield single to third base with one out in the seventh, but got a strikeout and an infield grounder to end the inning.카지노사이트
After the seventh inning, Sasaki had thrown over 90 pitches. After speaking with pitching coach Kuroki, he took the mound in the eighth inning against Seibu’s batting order of 1-3. It was his first eight-inning start of the season.
He struck out Donosaki with a 159-kilometer fastball and Genda with a 161-kilometer fastball. Two batters later, a grounder to third ended the inning.
Sasaki turned the ball over to Masuda in the bottom of the ninth with a 2-0 lead, and Chiba Lotte went on to win 2-1.
In her post-game interview, Sasaki said, “It was good to get a no-hitter today. I thought (the first inning) was dangerous, but I did my best. It was good to throw a long inning.”
With his complete game shutout, Sasaki regained the Pacific League lead in ERA. He pushed Yoshinobu Yamamoto (Orix, 1.89 ERA) into second place. He is 18 strikeouts ahead of second place.