A no-no? A perfect game? Anything is possible for Dodgers’ Roki Sasaki

Anything was possible.

A no-hitter. 

A perfect game.

That was the feeling Roki Sasaki inspired every time he scaled the mound when he was at his best with the Chiba Lotte Marines of the Japanese league.

Didn’t matter that he was only 20 or 21 years old.

That’s how overwhelming his talent was.

Watching Sasaki shut down the Angels on Friday night, it wasn’t much of a stretch to imagine the now-24-year-old right-hander creating a similar sense of anticipation in the major leagues.

The improved speed and command of his fastball in his last two starts has made him resemble the pitcher he was in his homeland. Over the two-game period, he has touched 100 mph four times and averaged 98.4 mph with his fastball, which has also made his splitter and slider more effective.

Once again, anything feels possible for him, especially if he continues to progress as he predicted he would.

“I think it will go up,” Sasaki said in Japanese of his fastball velocity.

What made him think that?

“There are times I’m hitting 99 mph without much effort,” he said. “In that aspect, I’m getting closer to where I want to be.”

If he’s throwing even harder, who’s to say he can’t pitch a perfect game, the way he did for the Marines in 2022? 

As it was, he looked as if he had no-hit stuff against the Angels. The first hit he allowed came with one out in the fifth inning when Nick Madrigal banged a double over the head of left fielder Alex Call.

Sasaki blanked the Angels over seven innings, limiting them to two hits and two walks.

The Angels are an objectively awful baseball team and Sasaki posted similar results against them in a start three weeks earlier in Anaheim when he held them to a run over seven innings.

What distinguished this start from that one, and what made the performance look as if it could be replicated against a real major league team, was how he did it.

With power.

With aggression.

Before he was finished, Sasaki struck out a career-high 10 batters.

Returning to this point was a two-year process.

For most of his playing life, Sasaki was never particularly mindful of his pitching mechanics. He did what came to him naturally, which made him the best high school pitcher in Japan and later a phenom with the Marines.

But in his final season in Japan, in 2024, Sasaki lost his fastball. He couldn’t throw as hard or as accurately. 

From there, he began the painstaking process of reconstructing his delivery. A pitcher who was once guided entirely by feel was suddenly forced to think about what he was doing in minute detail. 

He touched 100 mph in his first-ever start for the Dodgers, which was in their season-opening series in Tokyo last year. He didn’t register another 100-mph pitch again until last week. In between, he often looked defeated. He sounded as if he didn’t know who he was.

Sasaki viewed his breakthrough against the Philadelphia Phillies last week as an extension of everything he’d built up to that point. He said that in some ways, he’s a more advanced pitcher than he ever was in Japan.

“For the last two years, with what I’ve worked on, I’ve had various experiences, both good and bad,” he said. “Compared to when I was pitching well, I think I have a better understanding of what works for me.”

He explained that was part of his plan. The better he understood his delivery, he said, the better he would be able to sustain good stretches or work his way out of bad ones.

Sasaki believed the improvements he made to his delivery affected not only the velocity of his fastball but also the command.

“I’m able to go all-out with my fastball in the zone and even though I’m throwing it as hard as I can, it goes to where I want it to go to a degree,” he said.

He said the aggression with which he attacked hitters was a reflection of his mechanics rather than his mentality.

“It wasn’t that I was afraid (before),” Sasaki said. “From a technical standpoint, I just couldn’t get the ball to go where I wanted it to.”

Whereas Sasaki said he started feeling more like himself when his velocity jumped in his previous start, manager Dave Roberts attributed his recent ascent to an earlier development, his decision to replace his forkball with a faster split that didn’t break as much. 

Roberts’ opinion can be supported with statistics, as Sasaki has posted a 1.50 earned-run average over his last four starts.

Either way, Sasaki has emerged from his early-season struggles as a more mentally-resilient pitcher. While he was spared the indignity of being sent to the minor leagues, he was forced to take the mound numerous times knowing that he would take a pounding because he didn’t have his signature fastball. He finished April with a 6.35 ERA. That number is now down to a season-low 4.03.

 “We all felt sorry for him and sad for him,” Roberts said, “and now he’s arrived as an adult and a major league player.

“He’s gotten to the other side.”

Now that he’s on the other side, what could be in his future?

An All-Star game at some point?

A Cy Young Award?

The possibilities once again feel endless for him.

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Original Article on NY Post