Dodgers insider tells fans to calm down about Roki Sasaki as concerns grow

It is very funny how fast the temperature rises around a Dodgers star when the sample size is basically a long bullpen session with uniforms on.

Roki Sasaki has thrown all of six Cactus League innings, and yes, the early returns have looked messy. He has battled fastball command, allowed half of the 20 batters he has faced to reach base, and put together the kind of stat line that makes spring-training panic merchants start pounding out their finest “red flag” material.

But this is also exactly the point Katie Woo was making when she urged people to breathe a little. Sasaki looked rough, made an adjustment, and then immediately looked more like himself. That is spring training doing what it’s supposed to do.

Dodgers insider sees a much calmer truth behind Roki Sasaki concerns

The Dodgers, of all teams, have earned a little trust here. Dave Roberts has been pretty open about what the club wants from Sasaki right now: get built back up as a starter, sharpen the fastball command, and keep working on the third-pitch mix.

Sasaki opened camp working on a cutter and sinker while trying to round out an arsenal that still plays best when everything works off the split. When the four-seamer is not landing, hitters can sit on his stuff. When it is, the whole profile starts looking nasty again in a hurry. 

The mechanical-adjustment plays a large role. After his rough first inning against Cleveland, Sasaki said he felt something off in his upper body, adjusted, and then retired six straight hitters. Dodgers coverage around camp has framed that as the real takeaway. 

The bigger reason Dodgers fans should calm down is that everybody seems to be pretending this is supposed to look polished already. It isn’t.

Sasaki is a 24-year-old trying to get through March while also fully settling back into a starter’s workload after last season turned weird. He struggled in the rotation in 2025 before a shoulder impingement sent him to the IL, then returned late in the year in a much simpler relief role built mostly around the fastball-splitter combo. So now the Dodgers are asking him to re-expand the profile, clean up the delivery, and stretch back out. Of course that process might look clunky before it looks dangerous.

It also means the concern needs to be proportionate. If Sasaki is still spraying heaters and falling behind everybody once the calendar flips to April, then sure, let’s have the conversation. But right now, this feels a lot more like Dodgers fans being spoiled by a roster that usually makes everything look easy than it does a genuine emergency.

Roberts has already said the Dodgers still expect Sasaki to open the season in the rotation, and the team is even moving him to a controlled backfield setting to help with his buildup. That is not the behavior of a club bracing for disaster.

Katie Woo has the right read here. Let’s calm down. Sasaki does not need to be perfect in March. He just needs to keep looking a little more like Roki Sasaki every time out. Right now, that seems to be exactly where this is headed.