In that respect, Sasaki's splitter more resembled the spin killers currently deployed by the Mariners' star trio of Logan Gilbert (640 rpm), Bryce Miller (912 rpm) and George Kirb ...

Video below shows the last two in the sequence. Rōki Sasaki could just throw a Splitter every pitch. Yes, those are indeed splitters, not sliders. That offering is what makes Sasaki so unique ...

A little more than a decade ago, a pitcher by the name of R.A. Dickey threw a kind of knuckleball that baseball had essentially never seen. Now Roki Sasaki might be taking it a step further.