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The story
On 5ch’s live-game-thread board (“Nandemo Jikkyo G”), Sasaki Roki’s scoreless postseason relief outing became a hot topic. Despite issuing two walks and a hit-by-pitch in the first inning, he shut down every batter after that, and his top speed of 164.3 km/h broke his regular-season personal best of 163.9 km/h. Opinions in the thread split between praise for “getting results despite control problems” and worry that he’s “too scary to trust” and only “got bailed out by his own wildness,” with the discussion spilling over into Yamamoto Yoshinobu’s workload and Ohtani Shohei’s hitting slump.
What people said
He must've been feeling the pressure
Should be glad they found out early
Who cares about the stat line — no runs allowed means a win
He's already out of at-bats
Yeah, the data's shown bunting has a low expected value
Crazy how everyone in MLB just casually throws past 100 mph these days
That's his MLB career best
Regular season was 163.9 km/h
Today it's 164.3 km/h
Ohtani, you hit too
Background and Talking Points
Sasaki Roki, Ohtani Shohei, and Yamamoto Yoshinobu are all teammates on the Dodgers, and Sasaki has increasingly been used in relief during the postseason. In this outing, he struggled with control — issuing two walks and a hit-by-pitch in the first inning — but shut down the batters who followed and finished scoreless, with his top speed of 164.3 km/h breaking his regular-season personal best of 163.9 km/h. The thread split between those praising him for “getting results regardless of the stat line” and skeptics arguing that control shaky enough to walk batters — even when borderline pitches get called balls — is “too scary to rely on.” Looking only at the scoreless result makes the outing seem dominant, but the headline alone doesn’t convey that he was pitching out of trouble with runners on almost every batter.
*This article is compiled as an excerpt/summary of the 5ch (“Nandemo Jikkyo G”) thread “[Good News] Sasaki Roki, Scoreless Pitching.”
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