Roki Sasaki's perfect game was historic, but he needs more experience before going to MLB

TOKYO — Chiba Lotte Marines pitcher Roki Sasaki wowed the baseball world on both sides of the Pacific with his perfect game performance on April 10. Twenty-seven men up and down. Nineteen strikeouts, including 13 in a row. It was one of the most remarkable performances in baseball history, NPB or MLB. At age 20, Sasaki was also the youngest person in NPB or MLB history to pitch a perfect game.

His achievement was truly a rare one. The 19 strikeouts were the most ever in a perfect game in NPB or MLB. The previous NPB record was 16, set by Hiroshima’s Yoshiro Sotokoba in 1968. The MLB mark was 14 (established by Sandy Koufax in 1965 and equaled by Matt Cain in 2012).

 There have only been 16 perfect games in NPB history and in MLB, in over 150 years and over 218,000 games played, there have been just 23. There have also been some memorable near-misses.