Baseball: Sasaki dominant, Okamoto homers in Japan’s WBC warm-up win

Roki Sasaki pitched three scoreless innings, and Kazuma Okamoto hit a tiebreaking solo home run as Japan’s World Baseball Classic team beat the Chunichi Dragons 4-1 in Saturday’s warm-up game. Sasaki struck out three, walked two and allowed just one hit — an infield single, reaching as fast as 165 kilometers (102.5 miles) per hour with his fastball at Vantelin Dome Nagoya. The 165 matched Shohei Ohtani’s mark for the fastest pitch thrown by a Japanese pitcher. Sasaki’s previous fastest was 164 kph. “It was my last outing before the tournament, so I tried to pitch well,” said the 21-year-old r…

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