Another useless Dave Roberts update on Roki Sasaki doesn’t help Dodgers at all

Roki Sasaki's been on the Dodgers' IL since May 13, and has shown very few signs of progression in the nearly two intervening months. The issue is a right shoulder impingement, which reportedly was bothering him before the Dodgers finally put him on the shelf. Before going down, he pitched just eight starts and 34 1/3 innings, averaging less than 4 1/3 per appearance.

He began a throwing progression the week of June 22, throwing from 60-90 feet, just a few days after Dave Roberts said that the Tigers would have to "plan on life without him" through the rest of the season, only to change his tune later that very same day to say that Sasaki was pain-free.

Roberts has already been wrong about the actual status of his pitchers' health multiple times this year, and if he's not wrong, he's almost always unhelpful.

He provided one of those unhelpful updates on Sasaki on Tuesday, when he said that he's "feeling really good." Okay, great. What are we supposed to do with that?

Dave Roberts says Roki Sasaki is "feeling really good," which tells Dodgers fans nothing

Roberts never fully walked back his initial comment that suggested the Dodgers wouldn't get Sasaki back for the rest of the year, so who knows? Maybe that still stands. Being on the first step of a long throwing progression nearly two months into an IL stint is far from promising. He'll still need to throw bullpens, then face live hitters, then go on a rehab assignment - which could take another month, at least.

The Dodgers sort of tried to preemptively cover for the possibility of Sasaki having a rocky start to his MLB career. They reiterated multiple times, even before the season started, that they view him as an "unfinished product" that they're keen on developing. But it was kind of too little, too late after all of the hype he brought over with him.

Sasaki's accomplishments in NPB still stand, and they're enough to continue to make him one of the most promising young talents in baseball, but he's gotten off on the worst possible foot in his rookie season. The Dodgers must be even more thankful that they have him at league minimum for the foreseeable future, because the only thing that would really make this worse is if they had doled out a Yoshinobu Yamamoto-esque contract to get him.