Roki Sasaki built on the best start of the season by turning in a career-long outing but the Los Angeles Dodgers had their winning streak snapped at four games in a 4-3 loss to the Texas Rangers on Adolis García’s walk-off home run.
Sasaki’s fastball velocity sat in the low 90s early on Saturday, but he began to sit around 95 mph and touched 97 mph as the outing progressed.
While his velocity was still building up, Sasaki was aided by Andy Pages robbing Corey Seager of a home run in the first inning by making a leaping catch at the wall in left-center field. It marked a second consecutive Sasaki start in which Pages made a big defensive impact.
Sasaki retired the six batters faced before issuing a leadoff walk in the third inning. Kyle Higashioka followed that with a two-run homer that broke the scoreless tie.
Higashioka later singled in the game and ended up with the Rangers’ only two hits against Sasaki. The young right-hander continued to show encouraging signs with his development by getting through six innings for the first time.
Sasaki pitched four-plus innings against the Philadelphia Phillies on April 5 and followed that a week later by completing five innings when facing the Chicago Cubs leading into Saturday’s start at Globe Life Field.
Sasaki threw 25 sliders in the outing, which wasn’t far off from a combined total of 34 through his first four starts of the year.
Sasaki was followed by Jack Dreyer, Evan Phillips, Alex Vesia and Kirby Yates. Phillips struck out the first two batters faced before giving up a single and getting replaced by Vesia to face Corey Seager.
It was a season debut for Phillips, which came days earlier than initially expected because of Blake Treinen going on the 15-day injured list with right forearm tightness.
Yates surrendered the long ball to García, who hit the fourth walk-off home run of his career.
Dodgers run support for Sasaki
While it was the Rangers who struck first, the Dodgers rallied in the fourth inning to help put Sasaki in line for his first career win.
Their comeback effort began with Freddie Freeman’s game-tying home run, and Max Muncy’s ground-rule RBI double put the Dodgers ahead.
There was some good fortune mixed in, as Nathan Eovaldi’s pickoff throw to first base hit off Michael Conforto and carried into foul territory. Conforto would not have scored on Muncy’s ground-rule double without the gifted 90 feet.
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