By Kirby Arnold
Herald Writer
SEATTLE – The splitter dives into the dirt like a mole in your backyard.
The fastball sneaks up on an unsuspecting hitter quicker than a patrolman with a radar gun on I-5.
And then there’s the threat of a curveball for those times a hitter decides to sit on the hard stuff.
Seattle Mariners relief pitcher Kazuhiro Sasaki throws the full-meal-deal of pitches, and he has used them with such success that he is tied for the major-league lead with 29 saves.
But that’s not what impresses Bryan Price the most about his All-Star closer.
“Closers are special people because they have a way of finding comfort in the ninth inning,” said Price, the Mariners’ pitching coach. “You lose a lot of people who have the stuff but not the heart and the mental strength to do it.”
It’s not that Sasaki has been perfect this season. One year after he set a team record with 33 saves and a league-low three blown saves, he has blown four already this season.
But he has come back from each of them and pitched like nothing happened.
“You may give up a ninth-inning game-winning home run one day, but you walk off the field expecting to be good the next day,” Price said. “He’s had a couple of those games with us and he’s come back to form again.
“He’s got great stuff and he has command of his fastball. But more than anything it’s the combination of stuff and confidence in which he expects to do well.”
Sasaki is known best for his split-finger pitch, but Price says it’s the combination of pitches, especially with his fastball, that makes him so effective.
“I don’t think it’s just the splitter,” Price said. “There’s not any one way to approach him and have continuous success.”
With 75 games remaining, there are a couple of magic numbers – Bobby Thigpen’s record of 57 saves, or even a nice round 60 in a season – for Sasaki to aim at. Price would rather nobody even think that far ahead.
“I never say never by any means,” Price said. “Certainly that is not a goal. No way we would set a goal as far as amount of saves or trying to play games in order to establish records. The one statistic we’re going to concern ourselves with is winning, and the second is not overworking somebody to set a record and sacrifice his longterm health.
“If save opportunities are spaced well, then anything can happen. We’ve got to continue play well and give him those opportunities. But if he’s got to throw three, four or five days in a row to stay on that pace, then we’re not going to do it.”
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