GLENDALE, Ariz. — It’s not too often a sellout crowd is in attendance to see a pitcher who’s not starting, but that was the case Tuesday as the world waited to finally watch Japanese phenom Roki Sasaki make his spring training debut for the Los Angeles Dodgers against the Cincinnati Reds. It’s been a slow ramp-up to game action for Sasaki, who signed a minor-league deal with the Dodgers this winter. And after pitching in a simulated game last week, he got his first take of game action under the lights at Camelback Ranch.
“He was great,” Dodgers manager Dave Roberts said postgame. “It was just one of those things that we’re all kind of waiting to see how he manages his emotions under the lights. First big league game. I thought he was fantastic.”
You could see from the time his feet hit the mound that Sasaki was fired up in his first taste of big-league action, firing his first pitch at 99.2 mph, getting Reds third baseman Noelvi Marte to ground out to shortstop. After experiencing dips in his velocity last season in Japan, one of the questions for the 23-year-old righty this spring has been if his upper-90s velocity would return. The 25 fastballs Sasaki threw during his first outing averaged 98 mph.
“Combination of both [adrenaline and mechanics],” Sasaki said of his velocity in his debut. “Really worked hard in the lab, peeked into the mechanical aspect of my form, and looked at things that I do well and things I wasn’t doing well, and was able to really work on things I wanted, wanted to, and I feel like I had a pretty good foundation.”
It wasn’t all smooth sailing for Sasaki, who allowed a base hit and hit a batter in his first inning of work and even pulled a few fastballs out of the zone. But as his manager was hoping to see, he was able to calm himself in those moments.
After a shaky start to his first inning against big-league hitters, Sasaki began to showcase the electric stuff that has made baseball salivate since he was a teenager. The Japanese right-hander froze both TJ Friedl and Matt McLain on two-strike splitters to get out of the fifth-inning jam.
“I was a mixture of excitement and nervousness,” Sasaki said after his debut. “But once I was on the mound I was able to focus and able to pitch.”
But Sasaki’s best inning was his final one, as he twirled an 11-pitch, 1-2-3 seventh. He capped off his introductory performance with a bang, striking out Carlos Jorge to finish the frame. The right-hander tossed three…