Roki Sasaki continues progress for the Dodgers, despite his fastball not missing bats

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ATLANTA – As afternoon turned into evening and the rain poured through the night, Roki Sasaki ate. He relaxed. And then he waited. The ominous weather conditions that lorded over Truist Park delayed the Los Angeles Dodgers rookie’s night so much that his first pitch wasn’t thrown until 10:33 p.m. on Saturday. By the time he left the mound, it was already Sunday morning. But Sasaki said he felt relieved. He delivered in a 10-3 victory over the Atlanta Braves that ended at 1:26 a.m. local time, earned his first major league win, and continued one of baseball’s most anomalous trends.

Sasaki, the Japanese right-hander whose fastball brought him international fame well before he chose to depart for Major League Baseball, isn’t missing any bats with the pitch. Entering Saturday, no pitcher in baseball who had faced at least 50 batters had induced a lower percentage of whiffs on his four-seam fastball than Sasaki (8.9 percent) has so far in his rookie season.

The right-hander threw 53 fastballs on Saturday. The Braves swung and missed at five of them, on 24 swings. That marked a career-high. A week ago, against the Pittsburgh Pirates, he had zero.

“I’m not exactly satisfied with my fastball quality,” Sasaki said through interpreter Will Ireton. “But mixing in my other pitches, as long as I command my other pitches well then I feel like I can get major league hitters out.”

It hasn’t mattered so far. He went five innings, allowing three runs while walking two and striking out four in his first big league win. His ERA sits at 3.86 through seven career starts.

Congratulations Roki on your first Major League win! pic.twitter.com/dPenpDcopU

— Los Angeles Dodgers (@Dodgers) May 4, 2025

It still is an outlier the Dodgers know they’ll eventually have to address. His fastball doesn’t have unique carry through the zone or a special spin profile. While he generates good extension with his delivery, it isn’t a pitch that has the type of characteristics to generate swings and misses in its current form.

“It’s not a shape that’s going to generate a lot of swing and miss,” pitching coach Mark Prior. “On anybody. We know that. But he’s trying to effectively get outs as best he can.”

Sasaki has historically overcome that shape by pure velocity, laying out a “homework assignment” to prospective clubs this winter in hopes of getting that back on a consistent basis. But that triple-digits fastball he hoped to reclaim has averaged 96.4 mph this season. Saturday, it was 94.8 mph. That’s largely by design. When he reared back for 101 mph in his first major league inning, he sprayed fastballs across the Tokyo Dome. It wasn’t sustainable.

“Roki, everybody knows he throws 100,” Prior said. “He’s not throwing 100 with us. That’s something that I think he was trying to train and get to to it, which we tried to help as much as we could. But he also felt like it affected his command tremendously in those first couple outings.”

So the Dodgers have encouraged Sasaki to settle into a velocity range where he could command the fastball. It’s created a baseline for him to even start to settle into starts and see what works. That has also put an onus on his unique splitter to be enough of an outlier to survive, and for his slider to be an effective weapon from day one in the major leagues.

All that in an effort to protect a fastball that remains as much a work in progress as Sasaki is at just 23 years old. Opposing hitters entered the night hitting .236 and slugging .400 against the fastball, more than enough to make do. The expected numbers painted a less rosy picture. Pittsburgh’s Oneil Cruz jumped on a fastball to lead off Sasaki’s last start with a home run. Saturday, he left a 93 mph fastball over the middle of the plate to Ozzie Albies. The Braves second baseman clobbered it into the seats.

It’s still good enough right now, especially on nights where he can land at least the fastball and the splitter for strikes. But it also has shrunk the margin for error for Sasaki as he’s already in the midst of his transition to the United States.

Outside of a climb back in velocity – one that doesn’t erode his control – an uptick in command or introducing another weapon to keep hitters off the fastball, there isn’t a clear-cut solution right now. At least in the major leagues.

“Right now, we’re kind of in bed with where we’re at,” Prior said. “Those are things that you would do in more of a minor league setting to where you can take some of those growing pains that might come with it. I don’t think we’re in a position of – we know we’re probably going through some growing pains as it is, but probably don’t want to voluntarily add to that. This whole year is going to be a learning curve for all of us. As it always is.”

Saturday, that meant taking in the positives of Sasaki’s first big league win, and the ensuing onslaught of beer, and other liquids thrown on him to celebrate afterwards.

“A lot of my teammates said congratulations,” Sasaki said of the aftermath, “and a lot was thrown on me.”

Dodgers manager Dave Roberts said he left Sasaki in the game through the fifth inning specifically to get the rookie his first official win.

“He’s starting to be that guy that we can count on and be dependable,” Roberts said. So he rewarded him.

It’s a move Roberts himself admitted he doesn’t deploy often. But the Dodgers have invested in Sasaki understanding the development process that it will require at the major league level. Finding a suitable fastball shape or velocity is the most notable task ahead.

(Photo by Todd Kirkland/Getty Images)

This news was originally published on this post .

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