Roki Sasaki’s growing pains are extreme. The Dodgers are prepared to live with them (for now)
Roki Sasaki is a bundle of talent. His mechanics are a visually dazzling cluster of long limbs and he is a very unfinished product at this point. The experience of watching him pitch has been short-lived and strenuous, exhilarating and exhausting, spraying fastballs with imprecision and showing little effectiveness with a splitter pegged as one of the most unhittable pitches in the sport.
The Los Angeles Dodgers sold Sasaki on the idea that they didn’t
need him. They had the depth to cover the growing pains and allow Sasaki to maintain the once-a-week schedule the 23-year-old right-hander had in Japan. They had the pitching development to help him get his velocity back to where it was when he emerged as the game’s preeminent pitching prodigy. They sold him on the idea that they could be patient, more than any other team that hotly pursued him this winter.
Good thing, because they might have to be, with how raw he looks at the moment.
Making his Dodger Stadium debut Saturday against the Detroit Tigers, he issued almost as many walks (four) as he recorded outs (five). He worked a full count against half of the eight batters he faced in a 41-pitch first inning, clicking his heels together afterwards seemingly as if that would lock him back into place. No remedy emerged as Sasaki continued to look lost through his first two outings in Major League Baseball.
“He wants to perform,” Dodgers manager Dave Roberts said. “All he’s known is success. And so I think that he’s certainly upset, disappointed. But you got to be a pro and get back to work. It’s not the first time that a starting pitcher has had two bad outings. And so again, this is all the learning curve, and we still got a good ball club, and we’re going to need him.”
It didn’t matter for the night because of the talent Los Angeles has around him. The Dodgers’ early deficit evaporated by the end of the second inning, jump-started by a Freddie Freeman homer. Teoscar Hernández punched them ahead with a two-run double in the fifth. Will Smith and Tommy Edman piled on with solo shots as the offense continued to tack on the runs. The bullpen only allowed one run over the final 7 1/3 innings. The Dodgers won 7-3 to complete a sweep of the Tigers.
They are 5-0 for the first time since 1981. No defending champion has had a better start to a season since the 1985 Tigers opened the season 6-0.
That buys patience for Sasaki, at least right now. His fastball was all over the place, topping out at 96.9 mph after touching 101 mph in his debut in Tokyo against the Chicago Cubs. That night
in his home country, he finished just three innings. Saturday, he didn’t even make it that far. It took him 16 pitches to mix in his splitter, which was only in the zone enough for the Tigers to swing at just four out of the 15 times he threw it. His slider, usually an afterthought, was about the only pitch he could spot in the strike zone.
“I just didn’t feel I had the stuff today,” Sasaki said through interpreter Will Ireton.
“He just could never really settle in,” catcher Will Smith said. “That’s hard for a pitcher to get settled in. It takes some good luck or a good pitch or two to just breathe. It wasn’t able to happen tonight.”
It took him 62 pitches to record five outs. Two runs scored against him, the first on a Manuel Margot ground ball that dribbled in front of the plate and the latter when he missed a fastball to his arm side to walk in a run on the 10th pitch of a plate appearance against Trey Sweeney. He came within a strike of getting out of the second inning but yanked a full-count fastball to Spencer Torkelson to walk him, as well.
That was all for Sasaki. When Roberts went to pull him, Sasaki walked away with the baseball still in his hand. Roberts chatted with Sasaki briefly in the dugout after the top of the second inning was complete.
“He wants to impress,” Roberts said. “He wants to pitch well. He’s going up there competing. And right now it’s just not syncing up. So we’re going to keep working on it. But from the outset, I’ve always said we believe that this is a process.”
He’s been erratic. His fastball command has made the pitch noncompetitive. He hasn’t had a great feel for his splitter, but he hasn’t done himself any favors to set himself up. It’s hard to put a finger on just how close Sasaki is to being the pitcher the Dodgers envisioned he could be this year, much less one who pitches to the lore that’s surrounded his name since he was a teenager.
“I don’t expect myself to be able to fix everything in a short period of time,” Sasaki said. “That being said, I am going to be pitching every week, so I do expect as a major-league pitcher to be able to put up quality outings. But it’s something I expect myself to work on throughout.”
The Dodgers don’t need Sasaki to be great right away. They do have reinforcements coming. Tony Gonsolin faced hitters on Friday afternoon and could throw three innings on a rehab assignment somewhere next week. Clayton Kershaw pitched his first simulated game on Saturday since undergoing offseason foot and knee surgeries; he’s still on track to be ramping up towards a return in late May.
Then there’s Shohei Ohtani, who on Saturday threw his first bullpen since Feb. 25. The Dodgers tempered Ohtani’s ramp-up in his return from a second major elbow ligament reconstruction this month, exercising caution as Ohtani completed his return as a hitter from labrum surgery on his left (non-throwing) shoulder. They don’t need the reigning MVP in their rotation right away, particularly as he’s still hitting leadoff for them. Ohtani is still “a ways away” from appearing on the mound in a game, Roberts said.
“We still want him to pitch,” Roberts said. “He wants to pitch. I think he can handle it. He’s done it in the past. I think the question is how much do we need him right now, and I think we’ve answered that.”
They’ll have opportunities to be flexible, whether it’s waiting to call on their depth or allowing Sasaki to figure things out through the fire, in the big leagues or elsewhere. In seven days, Sasaki is set to pitch against one of the top projected lineups in the sport in the Philadelphia Phillies.
“Make that start on Saturday and see where we go from there,” Roberts said. “That’s kind of my focus, all of our focus right now.”
