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By Jorge L. Ortiz, USA TODAY
Los Angeles Dodgers pitching coach Rick Honeycutt sees a lot of Dennis Eckersley in Takashi Saito.
The pinpoint control. The vicious slider. The successful conversion from starter to reliever. The crestfallen reaction to the rare failure. To Honeycutt, those are all parallels between his former Oakland A's teammate and the Dodgers' All-Star closer.

The comparison to the Hall of Famer pleases Saito (pronounced Cy-to), who joined the Dodgers with little fanfare last year after 14 seasons in Japan.

It would make Saito even prouder if he actually knew who Eckersley is.

The gaps in his knowledge of America's national pastime are understandable. Harder to comprehend is the right-hander's transformation from a mediocre starter his last three years in Japan to one of the majors' premier closers.

"That's very puzzling to me as well," Saito, 37, said through interpreter Scott Akasaki, the Dodgers' manager of team travel, in San Francisco over the weekend for the series against the Giants.

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"The last couple of years in Japan I had a lot of injuries. There were a couple of surgeries, a herniated disk (in his back). But it is a mystery to me and something I think about from time to time, as to how I'm able to do well over here."

To say he's pitched "well" is an understatement. After setting a Dodgers rookie record with 24 saves last season, Saito goes into tonight's series opener vs. the San Diego Padres tied for the third-most saves in the National League with 37 in 40 opportunities. In July he became the first pitcher ever to record 47 saves in the first 50 chances of his career.

Saito's 1.26 earned-run average leads the majors among pitchers with at least 50 innings. Perhaps more impressive is his ratio of 7.1 strikeouts for every walk (71-10), which speaks to his combination of uncanny command of the strike zone with outstanding stuff.

That's partly what inspires the comparisons to Eckersley, who struck out 73 and walked four in 1990 as the A's closer.

"He's got more pitches than Eckersley did. Eck had pinpoint control but he was pretty much slider-fastball," says Honeycutt, who set up Eckersley from 1987-93. "Eck took anytime he did blow a save (hard). And I see the same in Sammy (Saito's nickname). He doesn't like to fail."

Leaving family, career behind

Saito took a distinctly different path to the majors than rookie Boston Red Sox starter Daisuke Matsuzaka, a former high school sensation who commanded an investment of more than $102 million (including posting fee) and arrived in the USA with a horde of reporters following his every move.

There has been no talk of Saito throwing a "gyroball," the likely mythical pitch Matsuzaka supposedly imported from Japan. Instead, Saito delivers a two-seam fastball in the mid-90s that moves into right-handed hitters and away from lefties, and a slider that breaks a good 18 inches in the opposite direction.

"If you can hit both pitches, he's got a curveball for you," Dodgers catcher Russell Martin says. "And if you can hit that, too — which most guys don't — he has a splitter he uses once in a while. Normally he doesn't even need to use that."

Saito did not start pitching until his sophomore year at Tohoku Fukushi University, and his early memories of American baseball as a kid in Sendai, 190 miles north of Tokyo, revolved around Pete Rose sliding into home plate and Hank Aaron belting a home run.

Later, when the former infielder became a pitcher of some renown with the Yokohama BayStars of Japan's Central League, the majors seemed like a distant fantasy, even more so when his career took a downturn. Saito considered retiring after his contract with Yokohama expired in 2005 but yearned for a chance to toe a big-league rubber, even if just once.

He set out on his quest with nothing more than a minor-league contract, leaving behind his wife, Yukiko, and daughters Kurumi, now 12, and Mokoka, 9. In early April 2006, after a brief stint in the minors, Saito became, at 36, the oldest rookie in Dodgers history. He earned $365,000 and is up to $1 million now.

"I got to step on the mound and fulfilled my goal," says Saito, whose family has stayed home in Yokohama but visited him for the All-Star Game and in August. Manager "Grady (Little), my teammates, the support staff, I'm very thankful to them and I just want to sort of repay their help by doing the best I can for the team."

Injuries to Eric Gagne and Yhency Brazoban opened the way for Saito, who became the closer in mid-May of last season after Danys Baez struggled in that role.

"Many times this happens, a closer gets discovered out of desperation," Dodgers general manager Ned Colletti says.

"When you think what he's accomplished, it's pretty stunning. And he walked into the shoes of Eric Gagne, who was one of the greatest closers in the history of the game for a period of time."

Throwing harder, more accurate

Baseball followers back home wonder how Saito continues to mow down major leaguers when he was so ineffective in recent years there.

A four-time All-Star in Japan, Saito was a starter for his first nine seasons (he sat out one following shoulder surgery), only twice compiling a winning record. After two successful seasons as a closer, he returned to the rotation and went a combined 11-16 with a 4.65 ERA over his last three years.

"He was off the radar. He was not a pitcher on the BayStars all of us were talking about," says Marty Kuehnert, assistant to the president of the Tohoku Rakuten Golden Eagles in Sendai.

"Saito and (Red Sox rookie Hideki) Okajima are pitching much better than just about anybody here expected. It's surprising."

Kuehnert says Saito is throwing harder and with better location than in Japan. Honeycutt didn't expect the 6-2, 205-pound Saito to reach 93, 94 mph consistently but says the adrenaline of closing and the short appearances — typically an inning — allow him to go all out.

Hitters have been taken aback.

"When we were playing the Nationals they were like, 'What's the deal with Saito?' " says first baseman/outfielder Mark Sweeney. "And I said, 'Man, you better get him early.' If you don't hit that first fastball, if you foul it off, you're pretty much an out."

Not everybody is ready to anoint Saito a latter-day Eck. San Francisco Giants shortstop Omar Vizquel, who faced Eckersley for years in the 1990s, says Saito's numbers are impressive, but lack of familiarity helps him.

"I think he's been successful because most hitters don't know him," says Vizquel, who is 0-for-7 against Saito.

Teammate Scott McClain agrees, but only to a point. McClain, a career minor-leaguer brought up to the Giants on Friday, clouted 71 home runs for the Seibu Lions from 2001-04 yet never hit above .247. He believes the level of play in Japan is underestimated here, especially the pitching.

"There's a few guys over there that threw anywhere from 90-95 (mph) and close, and you go up looking for that fastball and you see nothing but sliders, unlike our way of pitching over here," McClain says. "It takes some time to adjust to somebody like that. Shoot, if you only see him here for one inning, there's not too much time to adjust."

In nearly two seasons against Saito, they still haven't.

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