Let's try *4 instead. Not nearly as much of a win, but might be usable.
#! /usr/bin/sed -nf
s/^#define *FREETYPE_MAJOR *\([^ ][^ ]*\).*$/freetype_major="\1" ;/p
s/^#define *FREETYPE_MINOR *\([^ ][^ ]*\).*$/freetype_minor=".\1" ;/p
s/^#define *FREETYPE_PATCH *\([^ ][^ ]*\).*$/freetype_patch=".\1" ;/p