Dodgers’ Roki Sasaki earns the save against the Phillies in Game 1 and emerges as another weapon
Los Angeles used two bullpen arms before turning to the 23-year-old rookie in the ninth inning. He fired 101-mph fastballs and needed only 11 pitches to close out Game 1.
Entering the National League Division Series, the Dodgers’ biggest weakness was no secret.
The Phillies saw it firsthand last month in Los Angeles when they scored 14 of their 15 runs in the series against the Dodgers’ bullpen. And they saw it again last week while watching the wild-card series as the Dodgers swept the Reds largely in spite of their relievers.
In Game 1 against Cincinnati, Los Angeles needed three bullpen arms and 59 pitches to secure three outs in the eighth inning. Watching that performance, the Phillies — who ended the regular season with the most runs in baseball (295) in the seventh inning or later — were licking their chops.
But a weapon may have emerged from an unlikely place, one that could shake that confidence. Because Roki Sasaki is now firing 101-mph fastballs and splitters that dip and dive out of the Dodgers bullpen.
Sasaki, 23, began his first major league season as a starter and pitched four innings against the Phillies in April. But he was on the injured list with a shoulder impingement from May to the end of September, when he returned as a reliever. Sasaki got his first major league save opportunity on Saturday night in Game 1 of the NLDS, and he delivered. The rookie sidestepped a Max Kepler double to shut down the Phillies in the ninth.
J.T. Realmuto, who had tripled off Shohei Ohtani in the second inning as part of the Phillies’ only rally in the game, led off against him. Sasaki started off with a 101-mph heater well outside the zone but came back and ended up freezing Realmuto with a his trademark split.
The pitch started above the zone, but at the last second, it dropped in for a strike. Realmuto could only grimace as the umpire rung him up.
“It moves a lot, and it’s not a pitch that you see very often, with how hard he throws,” Realmuto said. “It’s a big swing-and-miss chase pitch. But then there’s times where he does what he did to me, and he’ll actually throw it up in the zone and it’s a strike, but coming out of his hand, it looks like it’s way up. So he just has good stuff. You have to do what you can to shrink the zone and try to find the barrel off him.”
» READ MORE: Phillies’ bullpen cracks in three-run seventh, as Dodgers steal home-field advantage with Game 1 NLDS win
Manager Rob Thomson said last week that the Phillies heard that Sasaki is working on adding a cutter to his two-pitch arsenal, although they haven’t seen it yet. Sasaki didn’t pull it out on Saturday, needing only 11 pitches total in the ninth.
After Kepler doubled, connecting with a splitter in the bottom of the zone, Nick Castellanos grounded out and Bryson Stott popped out on a fastball to end the game.
“It’s power,” Thomson said. “... He’s going to come right after you, and it’s a big arm for a short period of time.”
And for Sasaki, who has yet to allow a run in two postseason appearances, the confidence is only growing.
“In terms of the velo, of course that helps. But aside from that, it’s about the quality of the off-speed, the command of my pitches,” he said through an interpreter on Friday before the series began. “The combination of all those three was something that led to me just having more confidence in myself and the expectation that I could pitch the way I did.”
Sasaki isn’t the only addition to the Dodgers bullpen since the Phillies dominated it back in September. Tyler Glasnow took over for Ohtani on the mound in the seventh inning Saturday, making his first relief appearance since 2018. He overcame a throwing error for a scoreless frame and came back out for the eighth.
That’s when the Phillies started to threaten, loading the bases with two outs, but lefty Alex Vesia entered the game and induced a fly out from Edmundo Sosa. The tying run was stranded at second base.
Clayton Kershaw also will be available out of the Dodgers bullpen this series. He made their NLDS roster over lefty Justin Wrobleski and righty Edgardo Henriquez, two pitchers who combined to allow six runs against the Phillies on Sept. 16.
But even if the Dodgers bullpen doesn’t look as feeble as it once did, for the Phillies, that’s no excuse.
“At the end of the day, we prepare for anybody that they put on the roster,” Realmuto said. “So our job is to be ready no matter who they throw on the mound. And we have a lot of guys in here that do their homework and watch the video, and so it doesn’t really necessarily matter who they throw out there. We’re not going to be too surprised by it.
“But it is different, Glasnow coming out, facing a starter in the seventh and eighth inning. But at the end of the day, you’ve just got to lock in and attack those guys.”