LOS ANGELES -- Roki Sasaki’s highly anticipated rookie season has taken another disappointing turn.
The Dodgers placed Sasaki on the 15-day injured list with a right shoulder impingement on Tuesday prior to their 11-1 loss to the Athletics. Right-handed reliever J.P. Feyereisen was recalled from Triple-A Oklahoma City in a corresponding move.
Sasaki, 23, averaged 94.8 mph on his fastball in his last start against Arizona on Friday, down more than 1 mph from his season average. He allowed five hits and five runs in four innings and didn’t record a strikeout for the first time in his brief Major League career.
Sasaki felt discomfort in his shoulder his last two outings. Speaking through interpreter Will Ireton on Wednesday, he described the initial feeling not as pain, but rather "not the ideal way that I want my shoulder to move." He did not attribute his lower velocity and command issues to his shoulder.
"It's hard to tell if it's the main reason why my velo and command was affected," Sasaki said. "But I'm sure that -- it's hard to tell if that's the main factor."
Sasaki had a scan during the Dodgers' off-day on Monday that revealed the injury and did not throw his scheduled bullpen session on Tuesday before being officially placed on the IL. Dodgers manager Dave Roberts said Sasaki’s injury is similar to the shoulder soreness that limited him to just 18 starts and 111 innings last year for the Chiba Lotte Marines in Nippon Professional Baseball.
“We became aware of this after his last start in Arizona,” Roberts said. “From what we gather, he’s felt some discomfort for the last few weeks, but given where we’re at as a pitching staff, he wanted to continue to go and persevere and fight through everything until his performance was going to be compromised. So that’s when he let us know where he was at physically.”
Roberts added Sasaki has no set timeline to return and that he will not pick up a baseball for a while.
“We made it very clear to Roki that there is no expectation on timeline,” Roberts said. “The main thing is that he’s healthy, he’s strong, his delivery feels good, then he’ll pitch for us.”
Armed with a triple-digit fastball and a devastating splitter, Sasaki emerged as the latest pitching phenom from Japan and was hotly pursued by nearly every MLB team after being posted last winter.
The Dodgers ultimately won the Sasaki sweepstakes and inserted him immediately into their starting rotation. The expectation, both within the Dodgers organization and throughout MLB, was that Sasaki would make an instant MLB impact like his predecessors and new teammates Yoshinobu Yamamoto and Shohei Ohtani.
Instead, Sasaki’s rookie season has been a struggle. He is 1-1 with a 4.72 ERA in eight starts for the Dodgers. He’s pitched 34 1/3 innings -- an average of less than 4 1/3 innings per start -- and has nearly as many walks (22) as strikeouts (24).
Most notably, his average fastball velocity has been down 3-4 mph from its peak in Japan. Roberts said he believes the velocity decline was due to a combination of Sasaki’s shoulder injury and mechanical flaws in his delivery that developed as he tried to compensate for it.
“Obviously knowing what we know now, there was certainly some compensation from him, and his delivery was probably compromised,” Roberts said. “And all that is because he wanted to compete and help us out.”
Sasaki was heralded in Japan for his high-octane stuff, but his durability and health were long question marks. He never made more than 20 starts or pitched 129 innings in five seasons in Japan. In addition to his shoulder injury last year, he was also limited by an oblique injury in 2023.
"Last year I did have something similar, but actually worse," Sasaki said. "It was something I was able to overcome and still perform. It's something that I somewhat feel, but not to the extent that I felt from before."
Though Sasaki’s latest injury is similar to the shoulder issues he incurred in the past, Roberts said he doesn't foresee the current injury becoming a long-term issue.
“It’s something familiar to him,” Roberts said. “So we just feel that with some rest, getting his strength back, getting back to his normal delivery, he’ll be just fine.”
Sasaki joins left-hander Blake Snell (left shoulder inflammation) and right-hander Tyler Glasnow (right shoulder inflammation) as high-profile starters on the injured list for the Dodgers.
The Dodgers rotation will now consist of Yamamoto, Landon Knack, Tony Gonsolin, Dustin May and Clayton Kershaw, who will come off the IL and make his season debut on Saturday against the Angels at Dodger Stadium.
Sasaki was originally scheduled to pitch Thursday against the Athletics, but it will now be a scheduled bullpen day for the Dodgers.
“Our goal is to get him healthy, get him strong, make sure his delivery is sound and get him to pitch for us,” Roberts said. “Now with the information that we’ve learned, he hasn’t been as productive as he would have liked because he was compromised, and so that’s kind of enlightening to all of us.”