Baseball: Stanford-bound slugger Sasaki MLB 1st-round talent: coach

The Stanford University baseball team has obtained an MLB draft first-round talent in Japanese teenage slugger Rintaro Sasaki, head coach David Esquer said Thursday. The 18-year-old, left-handed hitting first baseman has made waves in Japan by opting to play college baseball in the United States instead of entering Nippon Professional Baseball’s draft. He will graduate in March from Iwate Prefecture’s Hanamaki Higashi High School, where he has been coached by his father Hiroshi, who previously mentored Los Angeles Dodgers two-way star Shohei Ohtani and Toronto Blue Jays pitcher Yusei Kikuchi a…

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