Saturday is a battle of young starting pitchers at Truist Park in Atlanta — weather permitting — and perhaps Braves right-hander Spencer Schwellenbach might provide a blueprint for Dodgers rookie Roki Sasaki.
Schwellenbach wasn’t a top-100 prospect when he made his major league debut with the Braves last May 29, though he did crack the list at Baseball America in their early June update, checking in at No. 92. Sasaki this year comes with much bigger expectations, ranked the top prospect in the sport entering 2025 by every outlet that counted him as a prospect — Baseball America, ESPN, FanGraphs, and MLB Pipeline.
In his first 27 major league starts, Schwellenbach has been very solid, postng a 3.24 ERA with 160 strikeouts and 29 walks in 161⅓ innings, two outs shy of averaging six innings per start. Since his debut last season, Schwellenbach ranks between 12th and 14th in ERA, FIP (3.28), strikeout-minus-walk rate (20.2 percent), and FanGraphs WAR (3.4).
But the then-23-year-old had his growing pains, with a 5.68 ERA through his first six starts. Dating back to last July, Schwellenbach has lasted at least six innings in 16 of his 21 starts, with a 2.64 ERA and a paltry 3.9-percent walk rate.
The 23-year-old Sasaki is still a work in progress, with nearly as many walks (18) as strikeouts (20) in his first six major league starts. His splitter is fantastic, but his fastball hasn’t been great, and he’s still figuring things out. Sasaki’s ERA is fine (3.55) but thanks to poor peripherals his expected ERA (5.49) is not.
Sasaki went five innings, six innings, and 5⅔ innings in his last three starts, after totaling just 8⅔ innings in his first three outings. His growth will be an ongoing process, but it does make for an intriguing matchup of young pitchers on Saturday.
Saturday game info
- Teams: Dodgers at Braves
- Stadium: Truist Park, Atlanta
- Start time: 4:15 p.m. PT
- TV: Fox
- Radio: AM 570 (English), KTNQ 1020 AM (Spanish)