Pitcher Aki Sasaki of Lotte's professional baseball team, pitched 111 pitches, his highest since becoming a pro, in his second start of the season, giving up 2 runs in 7 innings, earning his first victory.
Pitcher Sasaki pitched for the first time in a game on the 31st of last month, and got off the mound with one run allowed in the 5th inning, with the rights of a winning pitcher, but after that, his team lost the game and they were unable to win.
On the 7th, he started the game against Orix, which was held at his home base, ZOZO Marine Stadium, for the first win of the season.
Pitcher Sasaki's control was unstable from the get-go, and in the first inning he made a wild pitch from third base with one out, giving him a one-run lead.
Pitcher Sasaki caught up right after, but in the second inning, pitcher Sasaki made two walks, putting him in a pinch with one out on first and second base, and a timely hit by No. 8 Shuhei Fukuda allowed him to win.
Still, Lotte's batting line collected 5 hits in the 4th inning, scoring 4 points and turning the game around.
Pitcher Sasaki changed his pitching from an unstable forkball to a slider-based pitch, and from the 3rd inning onwards, he bounced back and did not allow any hits to the Orix batting lineup.
In the 7th inning, he volunteered to take the mound and threw a career-high 111 pitches, hitting 158 km/h, the fastest pitch of the day, with 3 hits and 9 strikeouts, earning his first win of the season.
After the game, pitcher Sasaki said, ``I wasn't able to pitch at my pace in the first or second innings, but my slider was in good shape even though I was getting hit with a fork. I'm glad I was able to throw with good control from the middle onwards.''
Manager Rito Yoshii also said, ``I'm glad that he improved his pitches.The opposing team now knows that he has a slider as well as fastballs and forks by changing his pitch distribution, so he hopes to expand his range of pitches in the future. I think so,” he said.