Roki Sasaki

Sasaki has struck out six over three scoreless innings since coming off the IL prior to Tuesday’s game. He averaged 99.2 mph and topped out at 100.4 mph with his seven fastballs today. Based on Evan Phllips’ improvement and the very recent results from Sasaki and Edwin Díaz, things seem to be looking up for the Dodgers pen.

Sasaki is expected to operate as a one-inning reliever during Tuesday’s series opener against the Padres. The 24-year-old former starter is ostensibly auditioning for a spot in the Dodgers’ bullpen for their upcoming playoff run during the final week of the season after missing a couple weeks with a blister issue. He can be safely dropped in nearly all redraft fantasy leagues.

The original plan was for Sasaki to go long as either a starter or a bulk guy, but now it looks like this might be more of a traditional relief outing to get him ready for coming out of the pen in October. It’ll be Sasaki’s first appearance since he went on the IL with a finger blister at the end of August.

It’s not yet decided whether Sasaki will start or be used as a bulk guy. Sasaki has been on the IL since Aug. 27 with a finger blister.

The team is “hoping this will be the last check mark in his recovery from a blister,” which means he could be activated as soon as this weekend. As of now, it remains unclear if the Dodgers will put him back in rotation or shift him to the bullpen once he’s activated

Dodgers manager Dave Roberts told reporters Sasaki will not be activated from the injured list this week. The widely-held expectation was that Sasaki would return to Los Angeles’ rotation later this week, especially after they sent down Emmet Sheehan following a pair of strong outings. Clearly, the Dodgers don’t want to take any chances that he suffers any sort of physical setback as he returns from a blister issue. It sounds like he’ll be ready to pitch in the postseason, possibly as a reliever like he did last postseason, but his odds of making it back before the regular season concludes appear very slim.

The 24-year-old right-hander has been shelved since late August due to a blister on his right middle finger. he faced live hitters in a simulated game on Wednesday though and it sounds like he’s ready to return. Before landing on the injured list, Sasaki had posted a 4.60 ERA, 1.33 WHIP and a 117/48 K/BB ratio over 119 1/3 innings in 23 starts for the Dodgers.

Sasaki threw multiple innings during the up-and-down session, which puts him on track to jump back into Los Angeles’ rotation at some point early next week. The 24-year-old hit the injured list with a right middle finger blister in late August.

Sasaki hit the injured list with a blister on his right middle finger roughly two weeks ago. It sounds like the issue has resolved itself to the point that he’ll be able to take the ball again for the final two weeks of the season.

Sasaki was pulled from Wednesday’s start against the Braves after the blister issue cropped up. No word yet on how long he’ll be shelved for, but he’ll miss at least one trip through the Dodgers’ rotation. Eric Lauer will move back from the bullpen to take his place in the club’s six-man rotation for the time being.

Roberts added that Eric Lauer will take Sasaki’s spot in the rotation. The 24-year-old was removed from Wednesday’s start against the Braves after 3 1/3 innings due to a significant blister that cropped up unexpectedly on his right middle finger. He’s going to miss at least one turn through the rotation and could wind up sidelined until mid-September.

Sasaki departed with one out in the fourth inning after throwing 66 pitches (42 strikes). He was charged with four runs on six hits, including a solo homer by Matt Olson. He struck out three and issued two walks. The 24-year-old hasn’t dealt with blister issues this season, which means that his exit was likely precautionary. There should be an update on his status in the coming days. His next start will be against the Cardinals on Wednesday.

It’s the fourth straight outing in which he’s allowed exactly two runs, and he has a 2.31 ERA over his last six starts. Sasaki left with a two-run led tonight, but since it didn’t hold up, he remains 5-5 through 22 starts. He’ll likely pitch in Atlanta next week, making him a mediocre play in mixed leagues.

Sasaki issued five walks, including three in the Brewers’ two-run fourth inning, and gave up 13 hard-hit balls on the night, but he did finish rather strong. This makes five straight starts in which he’s allowed two runs or fewer and gotten at least 16 outs. He’ll look to keep that going in Coors Field against the Rockies next week.

Sasaki is three outs shy of having turned in five quality starts in a row; he allowed one unearned run in 5 2/3 innings on July 17 and two earned runs in 5 1/3 innings last time out. Still, he’s allowed a total of eight earned runs in 30 innings in his last five starts. He still needs to prove he can keep it going, but this is the pitcher the Dodgers thought they were signing two years ago. He’ll face the Brewers next week.

Sasaki’s splitter did most of the work tonight. He threw it 37 times in the 90-pitch outing and got 10 whiffs and four strikeouts with it. Meanwhile, it produced no hits or hard-hit balls the seven times it was put into play. Sasaki remains rather difficult to trust, but this makes four solid outings in a row, and with arguably baseball’s best team backing him, he’s not a bad play in shallow leagues at the moment. He’ll likely pitch in Chicago against the Cubs next Wednesday, though it’s possible he could be pushed to Friday in Arizona instead.

This was one of those starts where you could see how sky-high Sasaki’s potential still is. He was back to buzzing 99 and 100 mph fastballs over the first few innings and commanded it exceptionally well on the edges of the plate. That set up his splitter to terrorize the Mets hitters. In total, it forced 15 whiffs – by far the most it has in a single game so far this season – and a nearly 50% chase rate. It was simply diabolical and so effective that it morphed into his primary pitch during his second and third trips around the Mets’ lineup. It was also the first time in his career that he completed seven innings against a team that isn’t the Angels. This is now back-to-back lights out starts by Sasaki out of the All-Star break and it might finally be time to take him seriously. Next up is a matchup against the Mariners at home.

This was a very encouraging start to the second half for Sasaki. First off, he was pumping gas. His fastball averaged a shade over 100 mph and in total, he threw 21 pitches in triple digits and topped out at 102 mph. In his career to date before this start, he’d never topped 101 mph and had only thrown 15 pitches at or above 100 mph. His command was also much better than usual. There were a few more fastballs that caught corners and his splitter was consistently diving low and below the plate. Similarly, his slider was abnormally lethal. When Sasaki has his whole repertoire working like he did here, he’s a scary pitcher. The problem is that when something goes wrong, he struggles to get over that hump. That’s how he’s wound up with a 4.98 ERA through 86 2/3 innings on the season with this kind of stuff. The roller coaster will continue next Friday against the Mets.

He’ll be followed by Emmet Sheehan on Saturday and Yoshinobu Yamamoto on Sunday. The Dodgers have not announced when Shohei Ohtani will return to the rotation. That makes it likely that it’ll be Justin Wrobleski and Eric Lauer in some order for the first two games against the Phillies in Philadelphia to open next week.

Sasaki surrendered solo homers to Kyle Karros and Edouard Julien in the second and then another run on a walk, a wild pitch, a groundout and a sac fly in the third. That turned out to be the only walk he issued, and he allowed only two hits besides the homers. He struck out five. Considering that he came in with a 10.06 ERA and a 15/11 K/BB in his previous four starts, this is a decent way to end the half. He might eventually get pushed out of the Dodgers rotation if everybody gets healthy at once, but that hardly ever seems to happen.