The Dodgers opened the second half with a 2-1 win over the Yankees on Friday night, and the night belonged to Roki Sasaki as much as it did to Max Muncy’s bat.
Sasaki worked 5.1 innings, struck out five, walked one and gave up just one unearned run. After he exited, Jack Dreyer, Alex Vesia and Tanner Scott handled the rest, allowing only one hit the rest of the way as Los Angeles moved to 62-36.
The start also put Sasaki in a lane no Dodgers pitcher has ever occupied in the tracking era, which dates back to 2008. He threw 21 pitches at 100 mph or higher, a franchise first since pitch tracking began.
The Dodgers needed the power in the seventh, when they were down 1-0 and Muncy came up with a chance to change the game. He fell behind 0-2 quickly, then worked the at-bat all the way to seven pitches before launching a two-run homer that flipped the score and gave Los Angeles the lead for good.
Before the game, manager Dave Roberts said catcher Will Smith has been shut down after another setback in his recovery from an inflamed disc in his neck, an issue that surfaced in June. Roberts said the plan now is to back off completely for a stretch and then reassess.
"To be honest with you, right now, he's taking at least a week off just really doing no activity to hopefully calm his neck down to then build up," Roberts said. "Early on, we've been trying to get him ready, moving around, doing some baseball stuff, but he hasn't been able to get over the hump.
"So I think we feel like, no activity, and then we'll kind of read and react after a week."
There was better news on Tyler Glasnow, who is moving forward in his own recovery. Pitching coach Mark Prior said the right-hander’s routine has started to settle in.
“The schedule is starting to move with a little bit more consistency than it had been,” Prior said. “So he’s in a good spot.”
The night also carried a historic note from Sasaki’s heater, a reminder that the Dodgers got exactly the kind of frontline stuff they needed in a tight game against New York.
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Pitching depth may be the easiest place to create that kind of flexibility, especially with several starters working their way back from the injured list. If the rotation gets healthier in the coming weeks, the Yankees could find themselves with more arms than spots, which is exactly the sort of surplus that can be turned into help elsewhere. The harder question is whether that help has to come from a part of the roster the club would rather keep intact. [Read more 🡒]