Dodgers’ Mark Prior Believes Roki Sasaki’s Injury Contributed to Struggles
The Los Angeles Dodgers have 14 pitchers on the injured list after an offseason that was spent addressing last year’s issue of pitching depth.
Roki Sasaki was seen as a unicorn coming over from Nippon Professional Baseball with a virtually unhittable splitter, a 2.10 ERA over four seasons, and being just 23 years old. After being courted by 20 MLB teams, the right-hander finally signed with L.A., but has had a below-average 4.72 ERA in his first eight starts with the Dodgers.
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Sasaki landed on the injured list with a shoulder impingement a little over a month ago, and Dodgers pitching coach Mark Prior theorized that the injury led to his lack of command to begin the MLB chapter of his career.
“Clearly, he was bothered by it last year at times in Japan, and it’s kinda reared its head again a little bit,” Prior said. “I think you kinda have two different paths going on here. You have a development path overlayed with him trying to perform at the Major League level, and those things aren’t easy.
“We see it a lot of times with guys coming up from Triple-A and the minor leagues, and they’re trying to continue their development at the big league level, and that’s extremely hard, and sometimes it gets messy. But I do think the shoulder thing has something to do with it.
“Clearly the velocity continued to trend down. And finally he got to the point where he spoke up and we’re glad he did, because I think it’s something we needed to address, his overall shoulder conditioning and strength.”
Fastball velocity was the subject of his offseason ‘homework assignment’ assigned to interested MLB teams to see how Sasaki’s potential employers could communicate information with him. He asked teams why his fastball velocity dropped the season prior and how to ensure it doesn’t happen again.
Pitch speed was another concern for Sasaki during the beginning of his Dodgers career, but the hope is that after recovering and returning to the field, the phenom’s velocity and production will rise.
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Photo Credit: Mark J. Rebilas-Imagn Images
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