Darvish Yu (San Diego Padres), who has ‘188 wins’ in the US and Japan, expressed a negative meaning to Sasaki Rocky’s (Chiba Lotte Marines) slider practice. The reason is because of the forkball that is close to 150km.
Japan’s ‘TV Tokyo Sports’ reported an interview with Darvish on the 27th (Korean time). In an interview with the media, Darvish shook his head at ‘Perfect Game’ Sasaki’s slider polishing.
Sasaki achieved a ‘perfect game’ that will go down in the history of Japanese professional baseball, striking out as many as 19 in nine innings against the Orix Buffaloes at the beginning of last year’s season. At the time, the age of 20 years and 5 months was the youngest, and the first among players who had no complete shutout or complete pitch experience, and striking out 13 consecutive batters was an unofficial world record.
Sasaki failed to achieve his first 10 wins in his debut due to a finger blister injury and physical problems, but he recorded 9 wins and 4 losses with an ERA of 2.02, including 173 strikeouts in 129⅓ innings in 20 games. He has succeeded in being reborn as a player representing the 바카라사이트
Sasaki is well known as a pitcher who mainly uses his fastball with a speed of 164 km/h and a forkball that can reach 150 km/h in official games. However, he started increasing the percentage of his slider in June of last year, and is struggling even in the off-season to use it as his main weapon.
Sasaki, who joined the World Baseball Classic (WBC) team to be held in March, has won 188 career wins in Japan and major leagues, and after the 2022 season ends, Sasaki signs a 5-year, $108 million (approximately 142.6 billion won) contract extension with San Diego. Darvish, who signed the . However, Darvish showed a somewhat negative gaze towards Sasaki’s obsession with sliders.
In a practice game against the Softbank Hawks on the 25th, Sasaki pitched a scoreless pitch, striking out five in two innings. In the first inning, he allowed one hit with a fastball and forkball-oriented ball mix. However, from the second inning, he mixed the slider and threw the pitch, creating a three-way inning.
He clearly has a high level of slider, and when mixed throws, the results are good. But Darvish’s obsession with sliders seems to be a bit disappointing. According to ‘TV Tokyo Sports’, Darvish said, “For me, I thought I was throwing a very good slider. I remember Sasaki’s sliders in the past, so I think he is throwing a top-class slider compared to him.” opened
Continuing, Darvish said, “I would have been very happy if I had struck out in the game with the slider,” but “Sasaki wants to drop the slider more horizontally. From that point of view, there is still a lot to do.” The reason Sasaki’s slider was praised but expressed regret was because there was a definite winning shot called a forkball that reached 150km.
Darvish added, “If you look at the forkball, I don’t think even major league players can hit it.”