The legend of Rintaro Sasaki continued to grow on Saturday.
After hitting his first collegiate home run for Stanford, Sasaki crushed a walk-off three-run home run against Duke to trigger the 10-run mercy rule.
If you’re not familiar with Sasaki’s story, it’s truly fascinating. Sasaki set a record with 140 home runs at Hanamaki Higashi High School, Shohei Ohtani's alma mater. Widely expected to be the No. 1 overall pick in the Nippon Professional Baseball Draft, Sasaki instead opted to head to Stanford. Rather than come to the Majors via the NPB -- much like Ohtani, Ichiro Suzuki and Yu Darvish did -- Sasaki is trying to carve his own path.
Sasaki could enter the MLB Draft as early as 2026. The slugging left-handed hitter developed under the tutelage of his father, Hiroshi, who coached both Ohtani and the Angels’ Yusei Kikuchi in high school. If his home run-hitting ability is any indication, he should continue crushing long balls for the Cardinal for the next few seasons and he could be slugging homers in professional baseball as soon as next year.