Dodgers’ Roki Sasaki, Who Almost Had Tommy John Surgery, Says Health Played Key Role in MLB Decision
Many baseball insiders wondered why Roki Sasaki chose this offseason to make the leap from Japan to Major League Baseball.
The newest starter for the Los Angeles Dodgers answered those questions during his press conference Wednesday at Dodger Stadium.
Sasaki was asked about a previous elbow injury and revealed that his elbow issues stemmed from challenges he faced during his first year with the Chiba Lotte Marines in Japan.
Sasaki was only 18 years old and struggled to rehabilitate a strained muscle in his right arm. His slow recovery led him to seek treatment at several hospitals. One doctor recommended Tommy John surgery.
The right-hander didn’t undergo surgery and doesn’t want to risk his future on a career-altering procedure.
“You hear many voices that say I should have waited two more years [to come to the United States], but there are of course no guarantees about my condition in those two years,” Sasaki said in Japanese.
With health being a concern for Sasaki, it’s interesting to think that seeing injuries to Emmett Sheehan, Kyle Hurt and River Ryan didn’t set off an alarm in his head.
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“I’ve had numerous minor injuries in Japan, and I don’t think that’s solely a result of the direction of the team,” Sasaki said. “I think there are many things I can do myself, and things that I can improve. Of course, there’s uneasiness, but I think I don’t have a choice but to just make it work.”
Sasaki did some studying of his own and learned that his elbow discomfort was caused by shoulder problems. He took matters into his own hands, didn’t throw at all that season and delayed his decision to come to MLB by two years.
“I decided the time I will spend in these two years was more valuable to me than money and stuff like that,” Sasaki said in his news conference at Dodger Stadium.
The Dodgers aren’t looking to overload Sasaki with innings during his debut season and with a potential six-man rotation, his schedule will likely be very silimar to what he had in Japan. He’s also expected to break camp in the big league starting rotation.
“We don’t know at this point,” president of baseball operations Andrew Friedman said when asked how Sasaki’s workload would be managed. “He’s going to go out and start the season, and we will continue to work with him on [his] routine between starts. There’s more travel here. But we don’t have any artificial number of innings. It’s going to be much more about partnering with him, getting that feedback, seeing how he bounces back between starts.”
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Photo Credit: Jayne Kamin-Oncea-Imagn Images
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