The highly anticipated Cactus League debut for Los Angeles Dodgers rookie right-hander Roki Sasaki is scheduled for Tuesday night against the Cincinnati Reds, manager Dave Roberts said.
Sasaki won’t start the contest, but he will piggyback with Yoshinobu Yamamoto. Both pitchers are expected to throw between three and four innings.
“We’ll set up an exact inning for Roki to get prepared so he can kind of prepare for those three, four innings,” Roberts said. “They both have been talked to and asked about it and they both feel very good about it.”
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With both starters expected to pitch in Japan next month when the Dodgers face the Chicago Cubs in the Tokyo Series on March 18-19. Their scheduled outings on Tuesday position them for one more Cactus League appearance before the Dodgers head to Tokyo after their spring finale on March 11.
Yamamoto is expected to start the opener, but there has been no official word on who will get the Game 2 nod. Roberts announced this weekend that the Dodgers have not made a decision on who will be named the Game 2 starter, but he did acknowledge the possibility of Sasaki starting in the Tokyo series earlier this spring.
Sasaki recently faced Chicago White Sox hitters in what was described as a “hybrid B-game” on Tuesday and gave up a home run to his very first batter of the morning.
After giving up the blast to Kyle Teel, Sasaki settled in inducing several grounders that likely would have gone for outs had there been fielders. He ended the first inning with his only swinging strikeout of the day.
“He’s been a star since he was 16 years old,” Dodgers manager Dave Roberts said. “He probably hasn’t got hit a lot, but I do think that some of these guys that I’ve seen that have been really good, elite pitchers – when they get hit in the mouth, they respond back. He doesn’t run from competition, and that’s part of his pedigree.”
It was just the second time this spring Sasaki faced live hitters but there has been plenty of buzz surrounding his first Major League Baseball spring training.
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The Dodgers see the next weeks as a way to expose Sasaki to more competition in the U.S. which should give the team a better idea of how he has progressed.
“I think that this is kind of where we expected him to be,” Roberts said. “[In] his words, he’s not a finished product. We feel the same way. … Just seeing how his pitch mix plays against Major League hitters, that’s going to keep adding confidence for him.”
Photo Credit: Mark J. Rebilas-Imagn Images
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