It all came as advertised.
The 99-mph heat. The late-diving, hard-biting splitter. The overwhelming, if still raw, stuff that many expect will make him a future ace … if not more.
In his first official Major League Baseball contest, in the Dodgers’ 4-2 win against the Cincinnati Reds in Cactus League play at Camelback Ranch, 23-year-old phenom Roki Sasaki displayed all the tools that made him such a coveted commodity coming over from Japan this offseason.
He pitched three scoreless innings. He recorded five strikeouts. And he flashed seemingly endless potential, in both the short and long-term.
“We were all kind of waiting to see how he manages his emotions under the lights, first big league game,” manager Dave Roberts said. “And I thought he was fantastic.”
In his three-inning outing, Sasaki gave up just two hits and allowed only four to reach base. Of his five strikeouts, three came on pitches that moved so much they froze Reds hitters for called third strikes. And over his 46 pitches, the 6-foot-4 right-hander looked perfectly at home on a big-league mound, lighting up the radar gun and mowing through opposing hitters before returning to the dugout for the final time with a confident smile on his face.
“It was a mixture of excitement and nervousness,” Sasaki said through an interpreter afterward. “But once I was on the mound, I felt like I was able to focus and able to pitch.”
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Since signing Sasaki in January — in what was widely seen as one of the biggest coups of baseball’s offseason, given he was restricted to a minor-league contract with a modest $6.5 million signing bonus — the Dodgers have acknowledged that Sasaki is still a developing talent.
He made only 69 starts during his pro career in Japan. He arrived in Los Angeles with full comfort in only his two primary pitches, the heavy fastball and 80s splitter. Part of the reason he picked the Dodgers, in a free agency that included roughly 20 total suitors, was because he felt they could best help him refine his delivery, and add life to a heater that dipped to 96-97 mph during his final season in Japan’s Nippon Professional Baseball league.
“I think on the spectrum of finished product, it’s not even close,” Roberts reiterated pregame, noting the team’s lofty future visions for his development. “That just…