Roki Sasaki looked like the pitcher the Los Angeles Dodgers expected when they signed him last year on Friday night against the New York Yankees.
Sasaki went 5 2/3 innings, allowing one unearned run and one walk. He gave up five hits and struck out five batters. It comes on the heels of a quality start against the Colorado Rockies, but it was how he was pitching that caught everyone's eye.
Sasaki leaned in heavily on his fastball, throwing 21 fastballs over 100 mph. That is more than he had thrown in all of his other starts combined. He threw his fastball 41 times and hit 101.8 mph on the radar gun. It was his fastest pitch as a big leaguer. He averaged 100.1 mph on the fastball and spoke about what led to the drastic change.
"I had a bit of rest, and it had been a while since my last game, so my game sense was a little off," Sasaki said through an interpreter after the game. "Plus, the minor adjustments I made to my form felt really good, so I think that connected everything."
When asked about what adjustments he made, he pointed to revisiting how he uses his lower body. In his start against the Rockies, he averaged 98.4 mph with his fastball. The change is clearly something that yielded results, and he would be wise to stick with it.
When the fastball is playing up, his off-speed stuff plays better. Sasaki is trying to earn his keep in the rotation as Blake Snell and Tyler Glasnow return. Justin Wrobleski and Eric Lauer have also made a strong case to stick in the rotation, so if Shohei Ohtani, Yoshinobu Yamamoto, Snell and Glasnow are all healthy, two of Sasaki, Lauer, Wrobleski or Emmet Sheehan will have to leave the rotation.