Roki Sasaki takes 'big step forward' with debut of his new splitter

LOS ANGELES — Earlier in the week, ahead of his weekly bullpen in between starts, Roki Sasaki had an idea.He wanted to throw his splitter harder, he told pitching coaches Mark Prior and Connor McGuiness, similar to how he threw the pitch in Japan. After months of inconsistency, Sasaki finally felt his delivery was in a good enough place where he could make the change. McGuiness made a couple of tweaks — the biggest one being a slight grip adjustment— and the two coaches gave Sasaki the all clear to try the pitch in his bullpen session in San Francisco.“The first one was disgusting,” Prior said. “So we were like, yeah, let’s do that.”Advertisement