The Los Angeles Dodgers’ pitching staff have faced a major test during their current 10-game road trip, and they have risen to the challenge for the most part.
All six Dodgers starters over the current stretch went at least five innings in their outing, and Ben Casparius carried the load in the lone bullpen game with four innings pitched. Most impressive was Landon Knack and Matt Sauer covering all nine innings of the Dodgers’ 10-1 victory against the Miami Marlins on Wednesday.
Even with the Dodgers’ pitching staff performing as well as they could have hoped for, playing 10 games in a row without an off day was still going to stretch the pitching staff thin. Especially when the road trip is capped off with an important four-game series against a quality Arizona Diamondbacks team.
As a result, the Dodgers asked Yoshinobu Yamamoto and Roki Sasaki to pitch on five days of rest for the first time this season. Both former Nippon Professional Baseball (NPB) pitchers were accustomed to starting on six days of rest during their time in Japan.
Yamamoto got a taste of a Major League workload last season, but Sasaki’s start on Friday will be significant. Even though it is a big change, manager Dave Roberts said the rookie is who brought up the change in schedule and is embracing the challenge, according to Bill Plunkett of the Southern California News Group:
“Yoshi I don’t think it’s going to be that significant because we did that last year,” Roberts said of Yamamoto, who made 11 of his 18 starts last season on five days of rest. “With Roki being a young pitcher and that being all he’s known (six days between starts), it’s going to be different. I know he’s excited about it. And really he initiated the conversation about when this was going to happen. … I think he’s looking forward to it.”
Sasaki has begun to settle in after a tumultuous start to his Major League career, pitching at least five innings in each of his last four outings.
But the 23-year-old is coming off his most taxing start of the season thus far, throwing a season-high 98 pitches against the Atlanta Braves on May 3. With the Dodgers possessing a relatively rested bullpen for Friday’s matchup against the Diamondbacks, expect Sasaki to be closely monitored.
Roki Sasaki not satisfied with fastball
The triple-digit fastball that Sasaki demonstrated while in the NPB is one of the main aspects of his game that made him such a can’t-miss prospect, but it has lost some of its luster since the beginning of last season.
A dip in the average velocity on his fastball has been an issue since his last season in the NPB and has carried over to his rookie season in MLB.
It’s an area Sasaki is mindful of and wants to improve, but not to the detriment of other pitches.
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