Roki Sasaki Sets Goal for Rest of Season With Dodgers
The Los Angeles Dodgers recently suffered the worst home loss in franchise history as the Chicago Cubs demolished the defending champions, 16-0.
Before the offensive outpour, Roki Sasaki took the mound and dealt a career-high five innings, allowing four hits and one earned run with three strikeouts.
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Sasaki, a coveted young pitcher playing in his first MLB season, spoke on what it meant to finally hit five innings in MLB play.
“Just given the context that I haven’t reached the five-inning mark the last three outings, I think it was really important for me to be able to reach that point this time,” Sasaki said. “I hope to be able to do that as a minimum going forward.”
In what could be a lofty goal for some, Sasaki believes he can achieve it for the rest of the season. Given his history in Nippon Professional Baseball, it seems like it’s only a matter of time before the phenom gets back to his familiar form.
Sasaki had an ERA of 2.10 during his four NPB seasons with 394.2 innings pitched and a strikeout-to-walk ratio of 5.74.
Manager Dave Roberts called Sasaki’s performance one of very few highlights Saturday night amid the blowout.
“Absolutely,” Roberts said. “Today, the hope was he continue to build on his last start. For me, that was the silver lining of the night, and probably the most important piece of the game was for him to get better, go deeper in the game, throw strikes, get strikeouts, soft contact.
“Like I told him down below afterward, now we can keep pushing him along and keep going forward.”
It’s hard to find many positives from the worst home loss in Dodgers history, but Sasaki hit a milestone nonetheless. The name of the game for the young pitcher will be consistency moving forward, and building upon a solid outing.
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Photo Credit: Kiyoshi Mio-Imagn Images
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