Roki Sasaki pitched three scoreless innings, and Kazuma Okamoto hit a tiebreaking solo home run as Japan's World Baseball Classic team beat the Chunichi Dragons 4-1 in Saturday's warm-up game.
Sasaki struck out three, walked two and allowed just one hit -- an infield single, reaching as fast as 165 kilometers (102.5 miles) per hour with his fastball at Vantelin Dome Nagoya.
The 165 matched Shohei Ohtani's mark for the fastest pitch thrown by a Japanese pitcher. Sasaki's previous fastest was 164 kph.
"It was my last outing before the tournament, so I tried to pitch well," said the 21-year-old right-hander, who threw a perfect game in April 2022 against the Orix Buffaloes. "I didn't really think about my pitch speed, but overall I felt good about my pitches."
After Sasaki, Hiroya Miyagi, Hiroto Takahashi and Hiromi Ito threw two innings each for Japan.
Okamoto broke a 1-1 tie when he led off the seventh inning with a shot over the left-field wall. Chusei Mannami, a fill-in member for Japan, added a two-run homer in the eighth.
While Japan had five hits against Chunichi's three, Kensuke Kondo had a pair of doubles, one of them driving in the opening run for Japan in the third.
Chunichi's Aristides Aquino homered for the second consecutive game against Japan.
Japan's MLB players, Ohtani, Yu Darvish, Lars Nootbaar and Masataka Yoshida, will be eligible to play at Kyocera Dome Osaka against the Hanshin Tigers on Monday and the Orix Buffaloes on Tuesday.
Manager Hideki Kuriyama's team will travel to Tokyo on Wednesday before facing China in its Pool B opener at Tokyo Dome on Thursday evening.
