{"id":679713,"date":"2026-04-20T11:28:33","date_gmt":"2026-04-20T11:28:33","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/679713\/"},"modified":"2026-04-20T11:28:33","modified_gmt":"2026-04-20T11:28:33","slug":"dodgers-manager-felt-roki-sasaki-was-more-efficient-against-rockies","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/679713\/","title":{"rendered":"Dodgers’ manager felt Roki Sasaki was more ‘efficient’ against Rockies"},"content":{"rendered":"

Los Angeles Dodgers<\/a> right-hander Roki Sasaki has struggled with his command this season, resulting in poor starts. Sasaki\u2019s struggles continued in the Dodgers’ second straight loss to the Colorado Rockies<\/a> on Sunday.<\/p>\n

Even though Sasaki didn’t get through five innings, manager Dave Roberts did see some improvement from his young right-hander, which Sasaki can build off of.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Los Angeles Dodgers manager Dave Roberts feels Roki Sasaki was \u201cmore efficient\u201d against the Colorado Rockies<\/p>\n

\u201cI thought he [Sasaki] was more efficient. I thought he got ground balls when he needed to, got some quick fly balls,\u201d Roberts said postgame to\u00a0SportsNet LA<\/a>. \u201cAnd I really wanted him to get through that fifth inning. But with [TJ] Rumfield up, I felt, you know, Alex was going to give us a better chance to kind of keep the game there, but overall, better, better outing.\u201c<\/p>\n

Despite his \u201cefficient\u201d outing, Sasaki didn\u2019t get through five innings, as he allowed seven hits, two walks, and three earned runs on 78 pitches (43 strikes). The 24-year-old\u2019s previous two starts were much of the same, totaling eight earned runs, eight walks, and 11 strikeouts in nine innings.\u00a0<\/p>\n

More News:\u00a0Mets Carlos Mendoza ‘nobody’s going to feel sorry for us’<\/a><\/p>\n

The problem with Sasaki this season has been his walks (12 walks in 17.2 innings), but his four-seam fastball has not been effective. In 21 at-bats (109 pitches) against his fastball, opposing hitters are hitting .381 with a\u00a0.714<\/a>\u00a0slugging percentage and have hit two home runs off the pitch.\u00a0<\/p>\n

A reason for the change in the effectiveness of his fastball could be the fact that Sasaki has changed his arm angle. In 2025, Sasaki\u2019s arm angle was 45 degrees; this season, it\u2019s increased to 50 degrees.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Changing this up and being more on top of the baseball should be a focus in Sasaki\u2019s bullpens to get him back on track.<\/p>\n

More News:\u00a0<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Los Angeles Dodgers right-hander Roki Sasaki has struggled with his command this season, resulting in poor starts. Sasaki\u2019s…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":196985,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2406],"tags":[5,39,1165,4332,4333,774,57,3224,4331,4],"class_list":{"0":"post-679713","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-los-angeles-dodgers","8":"tag-baseball","9":"tag-dodgers","10":"tag-la","11":"tag-la-dodgers","12":"tag-ladodgers","13":"tag-los-angeles","14":"tag-los-angeles-dodgers","15":"tag-losangeles","16":"tag-losangelesdodgers","17":"tag-mlb"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@mlb\/116436801482223343","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/679713","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=679713"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/679713\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/196985"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=679713"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=679713"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=679713"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}