by Megan Garcia and Cary Osborne
All the signs are pointing in the right direction for Roki Sasaki.
The rookie, who has been out since the second week of May, faced hitters in Arizona at the Dodgers’ Spring Training complex last week. And he threw a bullpen today. Sasaki will face live hitters on Friday in a three-inning simulation — a notable development in his buildup. Most importantly, he’s pain-free.
“I feel better about being able to throw harder, especially because I’m pain-free,” Sasaki said. “With that being said, I do have to face live hitters and see how my mechanics hold and be able to do that consistently.”
The right-hander last pitched against Major League hitters on May 9 before landing on the injured list with a right shoulder impingement.
The time away has helped him recognize how to better attack Major League hitters.
“American hitters have a different approach at the plate compared to Japanese hitters, so I can’t really attack the way that I used to in Japan,” Sasaki said. “They have different strengths and weaknesses. So, (I needed) to have more variety in how I attack hitters.”
Dodger manager Roberts acknowledged that there was a steep hill for Sasaki coming over from Japan to the Major Leagues in 2025.
Although he was superb in the Nippon Professional Baseball League, at 23 years old, he had logged 414 2/3 career innings.
By comparison, Yoshinobu Yamamoto pitched more than twice that (967 2/3 NPB innings) before coming to the Major Leagues.
So, missing more than three months of Major League games offered him sort of an in-season offseason to respond to the information he gathered from eight Major League starts from March 19 to May 9.
“It’s 100% beneficial,” Roberts said of the time away. “I think that it was a big adjustment for him, obviously, in every way. And so to be able to sit back and watch a lot of baseball, which he has done, he’s very in tune with the game — and watching how pitchers attack hitters and how hitters respond to pitching, I think that little this break has been very helpful for him.”
In those eight starts, Sasaki experienced up-and-down moments. There were early command issues as he tried to navigate Major League lineups, but he eventually stabilized and, at times, excelled. The right shoulder impingement that led to his injured list stint impacted his final two starts — Atlanta on May 3 and Arizona on May 9. He allowed 11 hits, four walks, hit two batters, and surrendered eight runs with four strikeouts. His four-seam fastball velocity averaged 94.9 mph — down 1.2 mph from his season average.
Sasaki has progressed from throwing on flat ground last month to bullpens and live sessions, with the hope being that the next step is a rehab assignment.
Sasaki said he got up to 96 mph in his bullpen session on Tuesday. He also felt his mechanics had improved.
He has also introduced a two-seam fastball to his four-seam/splitter/slider mix and threw it in live batting practice at Camelback Ranch last week and in today’s bullpen. Roberts said that the introduction of the pitch gives him a better opportunity to get early-count ground ball outs.
“I feel better about being able to throw harder, especially because I’m pain-free,” Sasaki said. “With that being said, I do have to face live hitters and see how my mechanics hold and be able to do that consistently.”
Time away has benefited Roki Sasaki was originally published in Dodger Insider on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.