{"id":594565,"date":"2026-02-26T19:06:17","date_gmt":"2026-02-26T19:06:17","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/594565\/"},"modified":"2026-02-26T19:06:17","modified_gmt":"2026-02-26T19:06:17","slug":"dodgers-roki-sasaki-made-stunning-decision-in-spring-debut","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/594565\/","title":{"rendered":"Dodgers\u2019 Roki Sasaki Made Stunning Decision in Spring Debut"},"content":{"rendered":"

Los Angeles Dodgers<\/a> pitcher Roki Sasaki made the decision to call his own pitches, wearing the PitchCom device to lead catcher Dalton Rushing.<\/p>\n

According to Bill Plunkett of The Orange County Register<\/a>, Sasaki was deciding what pitches to throw on Wednesday during his opening appearance in Spring Training.<\/p>\n

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Sasaki ended up throwing a strong majority of fastballs, trying to establish it early, with not many different pitches.<\/p>\n

He switched to his other pitches towards the end of his outing, adding his new cutter and even a sinker to the action.<\/p>\n

\"Los<\/p>\n

Los Angeles Dodgers pitcher Roki Sasaki (11) throws to the Arizona Diamondbacks in the first inning on Feb. 25, 2026, at Salt River Fields in Scottsdale.<\/p>\n

The Japanese pitcher is coming into a crucial season with massive ramifications, meaning every outing and pitch will be important.<\/p>\n

He threw 27 pitches over 1.1 innings, allowing three earned runs, three hits, two strikeouts, and one walk.<\/p>\n

\u201cI called my pitches by myself because I wanted to try something,\u201d Sasaki said through his interpreter to Plunkett.<\/a> \u201cI wanted to try my own pitches that I wanted to make.\u201d<\/p>\n

Rather than letting him develop in the minor leagues and build his confidence, the Dodgers put Sasaki straight into the major league team from the start, but inconsistency and injuries led to him missing time.<\/p>\n

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This year, he is fully healthy, and while his start was not as good as he expected, he has plenty of time to prove himself as a major league starter.<\/p>\n

Dave Robert on Roki Sasaki\u2019s start<\/p>\n

In Dave Roberts\u2019 mind<\/a>, Sasaki drifted from his mechanics, leading to the lackluster results.<\/p>\n

\u201cHonestly, today was the first day I thought he came out of his mechanics. I just thought he was overthrowing,\u201d Roberts said.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe main thing is he\u2019s got to pitch off of his split. He can strike it, shorten it. Then mix in the fastball, commanded.<\/p>\n

\u201cAnd then work on that third pitch we\u2019re talking about. But today I think he got into some bad counts. He just didn\u2019t have feel or command of that fastball.<\/p>\n

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\u201cThat first inning I don\u2019t think he used his split at all. So, yeah, I\u2019m just going to chalk this one up to his first outing. Then as we build up to two, three innings I think we\u2019ll see a better outing.\u201d<\/p>\n

Dodgers fans should be excited about Sasaki\u2019s boldness to call his own pitches, showing his confidence is still intact.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Los Angeles Dodgers pitcher Roki Sasaki made the decision to call his own pitches, wearing the PitchCom device…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":594566,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2404],"tags":[146,22,4314,5,33248,10900,38,57,4,110],"class_list":{"0":"post-594565","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-arizona-diamondbacks","8":"tag-arizona","9":"tag-arizona-diamondbacks","10":"tag-arizonadiamondbacks","11":"tag-baseball","12":"tag-bill-plunkett","13":"tag-dalton-rushing","14":"tag-diamondbacks","15":"tag-los-angeles-dodgers","16":"tag-mlb","17":"tag-roki-sasaki"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@mlb\/116138501521558375","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/594565","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=594565"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/594565\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/594566"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=594565"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=594565"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=594565"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}