LOS ANGELES — After a disastrous spring training, Roki Sasaki admitted he “didn’t have confidence at all” as he approached his season debut Monday night — and who could blame him?
But, for the first time all year, Sasaki showed promise. And though the Los Angeles Dodgers suffered their first defeat of the season with a 4-2 loss to the Cleveland Guardians, they came away from it believing their most talented pitching prospect might finally have some momentum on his side.
Through four innings, he limited a perpetually punchless Guardians offense to just one run. His fastball reached 99.5 mph and his cutter, a new pitch he’s still experimenting with, generated a couple of strikeouts.
His command wasn’t great, but it also wasn’t bad for his first major league start since last May.
“When you don’t have success, it’s hard to have real confidence,” Dodgers manager Dave Roberts said. “That was certainly an honest admission [by Sasaki]. But when you perform, you start to have true confidence. Hopefully he can build on this one.”
Among the 52 batters he faced in official exhibition contests this spring, 26 of them reached base, 15 of them via walk. His mechanics were frequently out of whack, his fastball command was continually elusive, his splitter was generally ineffective, and as the regular season approached, nobody — Sasaki included — knew what to expect when the games began to count.
In his final tune-up before the regular season last Monday, Sasaki hit a new low. He issued three walks and hit a batter before being removed in the first inning. He reentered in the second — pitchers are allowed to in exhibition games — and proceeded to hit a batter and walk another before finally settling down to retiring the side.
In the days that followed, Roberts publicly clamored for Sasaki to stop worrying so much about mechanics and focus his energy on attacking hitters with his explosive arsenal. He then watched Sasaki do mostly that Monday, limiting the Guardians to six baserunners — two on walks, two on doubles, two on singles — while striking out four in four-plus innings.
“I couldn’t get through five innings, but the results overall felt pretty good,” Sasaki said through an interpreter. “I kind of have confidence about that.”
Dalton Rushing, the Dodgers’ 25-year-old backup catcher, got the start and gave Sasaki a short pep talk as the two walked in from the bullpen. Rushing reminded Sasaki how good he was in Japan, displaying so much promise that all 30 major league teams essentially bid for his services two offseasons ago. He reminded him of his success down the stretch last season, when Sasaki converted to a closer and changed the dynamic of the Dodgers’ bullpen in October.
Mostly, Rushing told Sasaki to trust his stuff.
As the game went on, Rushing continually set up down the middle, rather than attempting to give Sasaki targets on the corners of the strike zone.
It was a clear message.
“We needed to get him in the zone early,” Rushing said. “And as soon as he gets in the zone, his stuff played a little better. Obviously everyone loves to talk about the splitter, but to get swing-and-miss on the splitter, you have to establish the strike zone early.”
Sasaki pitched around a single in the top of the first and retired three in a row in the second but faced trouble in the third. Austin Hedges, who has a .185 career batting average, led off with a double, then moved to third on a sacrifice bunt and scored on another double by Steven Kwan. A walk to star rookie Chase DeLauter followed.
Sasaki looked as if he might unravel, but he came back to strike out Jose Ramirez on a splitter and lucked out when Kyle Manzardo‘s 105.4 mph line drive settled into the glove of Dodgers right fielder Kyle Tucker.
After pitching around a walk in the fourth, Sasaki came back out to face the Guardians’ No. 9 hitter, gave up a leadoff single and exited before having to go through the opposing lineup a third time, his pitch count at 78.
“I think it’s a big step forward,” Rushing said. “We’re gonna build off this.”
Sasaki threw only 58% of his pitches for strikes — the major league average last year was 65% — but most of his misses were close. Roberts praised his rhythm and aggressiveness and said he was more “in line” with his delivery, driving toward home plate rather than swaying to one side.
The hope now is that Sasaki can continue to build up his pitch count — and perhaps eventually prove, for the first time since coming over from Japan, that he can be an effective member of a major league rotation.
“That’s not what I want right now,” Sasaki said of his results, “but I feel like I’m getting better.”
