Japan's first perfect game in 28 years took 105 pitches, and an 18-year-old rookie called it

Roki Sasaki threw the 16th perfect game in Japanese pro baseball on April 10, 2022, at ZOZO Marine Stadium, beating Orix 6-0 on 105 pitches. It was the first since Hiroki Makihara of the Giants in 1994. At 20 years and 5 months, he was the youngest to do it, replacing Gentaro Shimada, who was 20 years and 11 months in 1960.

The strikeouts made it stranger still. Sasaki struck out 19, tying the one-game record set by Koji Noda in 1995, and he struck out 13 batters in a row, from the first inning into the fifth. The old record of nine had stood since the 1950s. Number Web's Akira Hiroo set the game beside all 15 earlier perfect games, most of which were won with single-digit strikeouts, and called it the greatest 105 pitches ever, beyond anything in manga.

Weekly Baseball, writing on the NPB site two days later, turned to the other half of the battery. Ko Matsukawa had joined Lotte out of Ichiwakayama High School as a first-round pick and was only the third high school rookie to start at catcher on opening day. Against Masataka Yoshida, then the league's two-time batting champion, he varied the pitch sequence and finished one at-bat with a 163 km/h fastball taken for strike three. Asked about the pressure, Matsukawa said excitement was the bigger feeling.

Web Sportiva's account gave Sasaki's top speed as 164 km/h and his fastball average as 159.8. It also noted that the 19-strikeout total had been the personal mark of Noda, whom the outlet interviewed about why a difficult ballpark for pitchers had not mattered. The third out of the ninth came on a forkball to pinch hitter Yutaro Sugimoto, the previous season's home run king.