Roki Sasaki’s first half ended the way too many of his starts have gone this season: with flashes of command, then a stretch that left the Dodgers chasing damage.
In his final outing before the All-Star break, the right-hander worked six innings against the Rockies and gave up four hits and three earned runs. He breezed through the first inning on six pitches, but the second inning turned rough fast when he surrendered two home runs. Colorado later tied the game in the third on a sacrifice fly.
The Rockies had another opening in the fourth after a single and a double put pressure on Sasaki right away. He dug in from there, striking out two hitters and getting the final out on a fly ball to leave the inning without any more runs crossing.
"I thought that he was fight-or-flight mode right there, and it was good to see it," manager Dave Roberts said to reporters after the game. "A lot of conviction, every throw he made."
Even with that escape, the outing fit the bigger picture of Sasaki’s second season. Through 16 starts, he is 3-5 with a 5.33 ERA, a tough line for a pitcher who was a postseason difference-maker in 2025. During the Dodgers’ World Series run that year, he appeared in nine games and posted a 0.84 ERA.
Sasaki didn’t hide his frustration with how the first half went.
"When you look at the numbers, I'm not satisfied with that," Sasaki said through interpreter Kensuke Okubo. "But I was able to [stay in] the rotation and the velo's kind of gotten a little bit up. So I'm kind of happy with it."
There were still some encouraging signs in the start. Sasaki touched 99 mph or better on 10 of his 78 pitches, and 56 of those pitches were strikes. But the larger concern has been what’s happened over his last 23 innings, when he has allowed 22 earned runs and nine home runs.
Roberts has said the Dodgers would do a "little dive" to figure out what has gone wrong, and both he and catcher Dalton Rushing have raised the possibility that Sasaki has been tipping his pitches.
“I’ve been working on a lot of things like the tipping stuff,” Sasaki said through interpreter Kensuke Okubo. “Also, I need to make quality pitches.”
With Tyler Glasnow and Blake Snell on the injured list, Sasaki should keep a spot in the Dodgers’ rotation. The hope now is simple: a cleaner second half, and a lot fewer innings like this one.
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