"You had a team that was trying to beat his a** down" - Dodgers analyst makes his feelings known about Roki Sasaki's blistering Dodgers debut

Roki Sasaki showed glimpses of his immense potential during his Spring Training debut for the Los Angeles Dodgers against the Cincinnati Reds on Tuesday. He received a lot of praise for fanning two Reds batters and striking out three more during his dominating outing, with speeds on his pitches reaching a maximum velocity of 99.3 mph.

Last year, while pitching for the Chiba Lotte Marines in the Nippon Professional Baseball League, the 23-year-old's averga velocity dropped to 96 mph, significantly lower than the 99 mph average pitcher the world had taken note of.

Relieving country man Yoshinobu Yamamoto in the fifth innings against the Reds, Sasaki faced 15 batters in three innings, striking out five, earning two hits and walking one. The Dodgers, who were trailing 2-1, came back in the eighth to win it 4-2.

On the Dodgers Territory TV podcast, hosts Alanna Rizzo and Clint Pasillas discussed Sasaki's debut. In Pasillas' opinion, the young flamethrower's outing definitely silenced doubters who weren't sure what the Dodgers were going to get from Sasaki.

"I think he looked really good. I think we saw some nerves early on in the outing, but he found it the fastball sitting around 98-99, the splitter looking as disgusting. Forkball, really is what it should be called, but we'll call it the splitter, quieted anybody who who had concerns about Sasaki and where he's at and how the Dodgers were kind of, we could say, hiding him in the background.

"Well, here you had a team that was trying to beat his ass down, and they could not when he decided to turn it on and dominate. He did that. So seeing that, seeing Roki with stuff versus big league hitters, it was impressive, and it makes me feel a whole lot better about a starting rotation I already felt pretty dang good about," Pasillas said.

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Roki Sasaki makes his feelings known about big league batters

For a foreign baseball player coming into the MLB, it maybe challenging to adjust to the ways the league and its players function. But, for Sasaki, he could identify it quie early into his outing and is satisfied with the way he struck out batters swinging and looking.

"A couple things that I noticed with big league hitters," Sasaki said, "they do hit mistakes and they do take some splits that I threw. But I did feel really good about being able to jam some hitters. As long as I am able to throw quality pitches, I should be able to get these guys out."

Yamamoto and Sasaki are likely to be Dodgers' two options when they open the 2025 season in the Tokyo Series against the Chicago Cubs. It remains to be seen how well they can keep their form.