A week after throwing Japan's first perfect game in 28 years, 20-year-old Roki Sasaki delivered an eight-perfect-inning encore Sunday for the Chiba Lotte Marines in a 1-0, 10-inning Pacific League loss to the Hokkaido Nippon Ham Fighters.
After 102 pitches at Chiba's Zozo Marine Stadium outside Tokyo, and striking out 14 of the 24 batters he faced and retired, Sasaki did not go out to the mound for another shot at history.
"If you think about what's best in the long run, I thought he reached his limit today," manager Tadahito Iguchi said of his young pitcher. "By the end of the seventh inning, he was getting close to hitting the wall."