Roki Sasaki made his long awaited Cactus League debut for the Los Angeles Dodgers on Tuesday against the Cincinnati Reds, finishing with five strikeouts over three scoreless innings.
During his start, Sasaki showcased the skillset that made him such a hyped prospect coming over from Japan this offseason, namely a blazing fastball and a wickedly unique splitter.
Dodgers manager Dave Roberts came away from Tuesday’s game impressed with Sasaki’s ability to light up the radar gun, according to Bill Plunkett of the Southern California News Group:
“This is the best we’ve seen him and you would expect that given he’s now really in compete mode,” Dodgers manager Dave Roberts said. “The adrenaline is real. We haven’t seen 99 (mph) all spring, so we saw 99 and certainly a lot of swing and miss.”
After experiencing a dip in his fastball velocity during his final season in Japan, Sasaki was determined to immediately remedy the problem going into his first MLB season. As part of his recruitment during the offseason, Sasaki asked all the teams he met with to give a presentation as to why his velocity was down in 2024 and what their plan was to ensure it never happened again.
The Dodgers’ answer to the question posed by Sasaki is likely one of a number of reasons he ultimately chose to sign with them. And whatever the Dodgers cooked up seemed to have worked on Tuesday, as Sasaki averaged 98.3 mph on his fastball throughout his start against the Reds. It was an improvement on the 96.8 mph he averaged in 2024, and much closer to the 98.8 mph he averaged in 2023.
Roki Sasaki donates to hometown amid forest fire
While Sasaki was making his first Spring Training start with the Dodgers, firefighters in his hometown of in his hometown of Ofunato in Japan’s Iwate Prefecture are currently fighting a forest fire that has displaced more than 4,000 people.
To help with relief efforts, Sasaki has donated 10 million yen (roughly $66,000) and 500 sets of bedding to those impacted by the forest fire.
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