splitter

His splitter, while still wicked, was a little wilder than typical.

Sasaki established his four-seam fastball early, then leaned on his devastating splitter and functional slider as his pitch count rose and he faced batters a third time.

As reluctant as manager Dave Roberts was to compare Yamamoto to another Japanese pitcher, he said Yamamoto reminded him of Hideo Nomo because of his reliance on his fastball and splitter.

He only just reincorporated a few splitters into his most recent bullpen this past weekend.

For the first time, he got to go on the attack — as Roberts had hoped he would pregame — and use his wicked splitter as the putaway weapon it’s intended to be.