College baseball notebook: Japanese star Rintaro Sasaki finds stroke right away in Stanford debut

Stanford baseball player Rintaro Sasaki swings in the batting cage area at the Sunken Diamond baseball field at Stanford University in Stanford, Calif., Friday, Feb. 7, 2025.

Stanford baseball player Rintaro Sasaki swings in the batting cage area at the Sunken Diamond baseball field at Stanford University in Stanford, Calif., Friday, Feb. 7, 2025. (AP Photo/Jeff Chiu)


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Rintaro Sasaki certainly lived up to the yearlong hype surrounding his debut at Stanford. The slugging first baseman went 6 for 14 with two doubles and a team-best eight RBIs in the Cardinal's three weekend wins at Cal State Fullerton. Sasaki set the Japanese high school record with 140 career home runs and opted out of Japan's Nippon Professional Baseball league draft to play college ball in the United States. Texas A&M, Virginia and LSU remained the top three teams in the D1Baseball.com poll. The Aggies also are atop the Baseball America rankings, followed by LSU and Tennessee.

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Eric Olson

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