LOS ANGELES — For most of his rookie season, Roki Sasaki’s biggest impact on the Dodgers was his off-hand remark to team president Stan Kasten during his free-agency recruiting visit that led to the team adding high-tech, Japanese-style toilets to the renovated clubhouse.
Now, Sasaki could be the difference between the Dodgers getting flushed out of the playoffs short of their goal or solving the biggest threat to their title defense.
“I think he’s really helpful. Really talented,” Dodgers president of baseball operations Andrew Friedman said after Sasaki’s latest electric relief appearance closed out the Cincinnati Reds in the Wild Card Series on Wednesday night. “He can get out righties and lefties. So obviously he’s really helpful.”
Helpful? Like a fire hose is helpful in putting out a fire? While relievers that have been taking the ball all season have fallen off Dodgers manager Dave Roberts’ “trust tree” like fall leaves dropping, Sasaki has arrived on the scene as the kind of dynamic bullpen weapon that can transform a postseason.
“I just feel like he wants the ball and everybody else should feel the same way,” veteran infielder Miguel Rojas said.
“Roki has been setting the bar really, really high for everybody else because he wants to pitch and everybody else should feel the same way. It doesn’t matter what the score is. You’ve got to come in and attack hitters and be careless about what’s happening. If you give up a run, we have an offense that can respond back and we showed it tonight (in Game 2 against the Reds). We showed it last night. And we’ve been showing it for a couple weeks now.”
Rojas hints at the “crisis of confidence” that Roberts has pegged as the main factor in the struggles of the Dodgers’ bullpen. Friedman agrees with that assessment – and that Sasaki can turn it around.
“We’ve talked about this – I don’t think our bullpen struggles are talent-related. It’s execution,” Friedman said. “We see it with walking guys and getting behind in counts, which to me comes from confidence. So we have to figure out a way to spark that and if Roki’s outing tonight is that spark, it wouldn’t surprise me.”
A month ago, it would have been a dubious thought.
“I don’t remember exactly when the delivery stuff clicked,” Friedman said. “Before that, no. After that, yeah.”
Sasaki started the season in the Dodgers’ starting rotation. For eight starts, he struggled with his command and looked nothing like the dynamic pitcher so many teams pursued last winter. He went to the injured list in May with a shoulder injury that was a factor in his final season in Japan as well.
When his shoulder finally felt healthy enough to start a rehab assignment with Triple-A Oklahoma City in mid-August, the results were not good. He continued to struggle with his command and hitters were unimpressed by a fastball that had lost the 100-mph sizzle it had in Japan.
In early September, the Dodgers used a minor calf injury as an excuse to extend Sasaki’s rehab time in Triple-A but also sent him to their training complex in Arizona to work with their director of pitching Rob Hill. Sasaki worked on using the lower half of his body to drive his mechanics and keeping his shoulders aligned properly.
That time seems to have provided a breakthrough. Sasaki emerged with his top-tier velocity restored. Confidence has followed.
“Roki has kind of been on his own trying to get his feels and things like that. But he and Rob had a really good session and tapped into some velocity,” Roberts said at the time.
“I think a lot of young, talented players just out-talent leagues and they don’t really need to make any type of adjustments. It happens with Americans, it happens with pitchers, with position players with a lot of young players. I just think it was something where he needed some suggestions for guidance and Rob was there and it worked out well.”
Friedman said the Dodgers’ coaches needed time for Sasaki to trust them and adopt the changes they suggested.
“We didn’t try to push it too early. We knew that he was a guy that was accustomed to doing things a certain way and we were going to embrace that,” Friedman said. “At the same time, forging a relationship and building trust and getting to a place where we could partner together and not pushing it prematurely.
“His delivery had gotten out of whack. The compensation for the oblique injury (during his 2024 season in Japan) and then obviously it led to some shoulder soreness. So just getting him feeling right and then syncing up his body again was really important and he was all-in obviously on doing that. It’s just how to get from A to B. Connor McGuiness, Mark Prior, Rob Hill have done an unbelievable job with him and the way he worked coming back made for a really devastating combo in terms of getting him back to the point of what we saw tonight (in WCS Game 2).”
Sasaki had never pitched in relief as a professional before making two appearances out of the bullpen for OKC before he was activated from the IL. He made two appearances out of the Dodgers’ bullpen before the end of the regular season and then his postseason debut Wednesday night.
Sasaki has retired nine of the 10 batters he has faced in relief, six on strikeouts. The Dodgers have simplified his pitch mix. Since returning he has thrown only four-seam fastballs or splitters. He needed just 11 pitches to dismiss the Reds in the ninth inning on Wednesday, four splitters and seven fastballs that ranged from 99.8 mph to 101.4 mph.
“You guys see it – when you’ve got to gear up for 101, then you’ve got to hit a splitter like his? I’m glad I’m catching him,” Ben Rortvedt said.
“That guy is gross,” fellow reliever Tanner Scott said. “That guy is gross.”
The combination of good health, improved mechanics and the confidence that has come with success have given the Dodgers “the 2023 version of Roki,” Friedman said.
Roberts and Friedman both backed away from naming Sasaki their closer – let alone the savior that many fans and observers have anointed him. And there are still questions about how much of a workload he can take on as a reliever. But he has already added a dash of hope to the Dodgers’ bullpen outlook.
“We don’t know yet,” Friedman said of how often Sasaki can be deployed, a problem mitigated by the extra day off in this year’s National League Division Series schedule. “We used him two out of three (days) and he rebounded from that well. Beyond that, we don’t know yet.
“He’s going to get important outs for us. I don’t know when.”
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