The Los Angeles Dodgers transferred Roki Sasaki to the 60-day injured list in order to make room on their 40-man roster for Zach Pendrod, who was acquired in a trade with the Boston Red Sox. The Red Sox received cash considerations in the deal.
Penrod joins the Dodgers organization after being designated for assignment as part of the Red Sox trading Rafael Devers to the San Francisco Giants for Kyle Harrison, Jordan Hicks, Jose Bello and James Tibbs III. The Penrod DFA decision was due to Boston needing to make room on their 40-man roster.
Sasaki had been on the 15-day IL since May 13 because of a right shoulder impingement. The Dodgers have not set any sort of timeline for his return, but Sasaki initially expressed hope of being back in late June.
However, his recovery process has been slow-moving and Sasaki recently was shut down from throwing. Dodgers manager Dave Roberts suggested it was possible the right-hander would not return this season, but quickly backtracked and painted a more optimistic picture.
General manager Brandon Gomes followed that by saying Sasaki had thrown some plyo balls on June 16.
“Feeling good coming out of that, so now it’s continuing to build a foundation and make sure we get him to a point where he’s feeling good throwing, and go from there,” Gomes said. “What that looks like, it’s still very early in the process. But felt good coming out of today, which was a positive. So we’ll hopefully keep building off of that.”
Prior to being shut down, both Roberts and Dodgers pitching coach Mark Prior indicated Sasaki had not gotten to the point where he could increase the intensity of throwing and thus was limited to light rounds of playing catch.
What 60-day IL means for Roki Sasaki
Sasaki now is not eligible to be activated until Saturday, July 12, but that doesn’t figure to be in the cards anyhow. He joins Tony Gonsolin as Dodgers pitchers who were transferred to the 60-day injured list this week.
Sasaki went 1-1 with a 4.72 ERA and 1.49 WHIP in eight starts before going on the IL.
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