p]:text-cms-story-body-color-text clearfix”> <\/p>\n
SCOTTSDALE, Ariz. \u2014 Roki Sasaki<\/a> took the mound Wednesday, looking to build off the success he enjoyed late last season, as he enters his second year with the Dodgers<\/a>.<\/p>\n It did not go smoothly, with Sasaki struggling to find the strike zone and getting hit hard by the Arizona Diamondbacks when he did. The 24-year-old right-hander gave up three runs on three hits and two walks. He did record three strikeouts, with his fastball topping out at 98.6 miles per hour, but only 17 of his 36 pitches landed for strikes.<\/p>\n \u201cThere were some positive things, but also things I need to work on,\u201d Sasaki said via an interpreter after he was lifted from the Dodgers\u2019 10-7 win.<\/p>\n Sasaki gave up a hard-hit single to leadoff hitter Geraldo Perdomo, and Tim Tawa walked. With one out, Nolan Arenado hit a line-drive double to left that scored Perdomo. Ildemaro Vargas followed with another double, scoring Tawa and Arenado for a 3-0 lead.<\/p>\n After a mound visit from pitching coach Mark Prior, Sasaki struck out Jordan Lawlar and Ryan Waldschmidt to end the inning. Sasaki struck out Druw Jones leading off the second, then walked Aramis Garcia and was removed.<\/p>\n \u201cIn the bullpen, I felt pretty good about the forkball but once I got on the mound, it didn\u2019t go well,\u201d Sasaki said. \u201cAnd the four-seam, I felt pretty good in the bullpen but once I got on the mound, it felt a little off.\u201d<\/p>\n Sasaki emerged as a viable high-leverage relief option out of Dave Roberts\u2019 bullpen upon his return to the club\u2019s big-league roster in late September. He gave up just one run, six hits and five walks over 10.2 IP in the postseason. But the goal this spring is for him to cement himself as a mainstay in the club\u2019s pitching rotation.<\/p>\n \u201cI thought he was overthrowing, I hadn\u2019t seen that all spring,\u201d Roberts said after the game. \u201cHe was a little too bullish on the fastball, but he was getting behind in the first inning. It was good to see that second inning, I thought he mixed better and commanded the baseball a little bit better.\u201d<\/p>\n Sasaki spent the offseason working to develop a third pitch, to add to his fastball-splitter mix. The new weapon in Sasaki\u2019s arsenal has been described by Roberts as a \u201cslider-cutter\u201d hybrid.<\/p>\n Two other notable names made their Cactus League debuts on Wednesday for the Dodgers, with River Ryan pitching a scoreless third inning while walking one and striking out one. Edwin D\u00edaz pitched the fourth inning, giving up one hit and striking out one.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"p]:text-cms-story-body-color-text clearfix”> SCOTTSDALE, Ariz. \u2014 Roki Sasaki took the mound Wednesday, looking to build off the success he…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":193994,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[27],"tags":[5885,1883,4396,426,423,1049,4468,23932,48,52,51,47,50,49,90701,90702,90700,5884,2668,24126,17564],"class_list":{"0":"post-193993","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-los-angeles","8":"tag-bullpen","9":"tag-club","10":"tag-dave-roberts","11":"tag-dodgers","12":"tag-game","13":"tag-hit","14":"tag-inning","15":"tag-innings","16":"tag-la","17":"tag-la-headlines","18":"tag-la-news","19":"tag-los-angeles","20":"tag-los-angeles-headlines","21":"tag-los-angeles-news","22":"tag-mound-visit","23":"tag-mound-wednesday","24":"tag-paul-gervase","25":"tag-roki-sasaki","26":"tag-run","27":"tag-sasaki","28":"tag-second-year"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/193993","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=193993"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/193993\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/193994"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=193993"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=193993"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=193993"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}