After ending his rookie season on a dominant note in the bullpen, Roki Sasaki is returning to the Los Angeles Dodgers starting rotation this year.
Manager Dave Roberts believes the right-hander has shown a lot of progress this spring, but he left a lot to be desired in his 2026 Cactus League debut against the Arizona Diamondbacks on Wednesday.
Sasaki was pulled with one out in the second inning after allowing five of his nine batters faced to reach base safely. He gave up three hits, including two doubles, and issued two walks.
Roberts doesn’t want to overreact after one poor outing, but emphasized the need for Sasaki to continue making strides in Spring Training, via Bill Plunkett of the Southern California News Group:
“It is, but I think that Roki has still – there’s a lot of growth potential with Roki as a young player, and so it’s important because we’re expecting him to be good, he’s expecting to be good and to continue to get better,” Roberts said. “But, yeah, I mean, it’s a big one. But they should all be big in a certain way.
“Roki is still developing, and like I said, he’s not going to be fully developed by the season’s start, and that’s to be expected.”
Sasaki struggled with his command against the Diamondbacks as only 17 of his 36 pitches went for strikes. Roberts noted that the 24-year-old looked a little off with his mechanics:
“Honestly, today was the first day I thought he came out of his mechanics. I just thought he was overthrowing,” Roberts said, adding that he hadn’t seen that during Sasaki’s bullpen sessions or live batting practice this spring.
“The main thing is he’s got to pitch off of his split. He can strike it, shorten it. Then mix in the fastball, commanded. And then work on that third pitch we’re talking about. But today I think he got into some bad counts. He just didn’t have feel or command of that fastball. That first inning I don’t think he used his split at all. So, yeah, I’m just going to chalk this one up to his first outing. Then as we build up to two, three innings I think we’ll see a better outing.”
Sasaki leaned on his fastball early against the Diamondbacks as he threw it for seven of his first 10 pitches. Sasaki then began to mix in his new cutter with more frequency as his outing progressed.
He also struggled with his command at times last season, so that is something Sasaki will have to continue fine-tuning if he wants to find long-term success as a starting pitcher.
Roki Sasaki working on new pitches
Sasaki has been working on adding a third pitch to complement his fastball and splitter, experimenting with the aforementioned cutter and slider in Spring Training.
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