Dodgers reliever’s slump suddenly makes Roki Sasaki a more tempting October option

Tanner Scott has been the face of the Dodgers' bullpen struggles as of late, probably owing to his $72 million contract and the added expectations because of it, but Blake Treinen has been equally as responsible for some of the Dodgers' more embarrassing losses as of late.

The Dodgers failed to close their last series against the Giants with a sweep partly because of the offense's inability to provide run support, but also because of Treinen's blowup in the top of the eighth, when he allowed three runs to create a two-run deficit the Dodgers couldn't come back from.

It was his fifth loss in his last seven outings, and it led to calls for LA to keep him off of postseason roster for however long their run lasts.

The Dodgers do have alternatives. Roki Sasaki, Brock Stewart, and Kyle Hurt are all waiting to be activated from the IL, if any of them do come back at all. Sasaki's last couple of rehab outings were in relief, and he has the most riding on the rest of the season.

Although he was totally untrustworthy when he was healthy and still didn't offer many reassurances with a few Triple-A starts, bringing him back to the majors as a reliever to take Treinen's spot on the Wild Card roster doesn't look like the worst thing in the world anymore. It's wild to think that it once did.

Roki Sasaki's return actually looks appealing to Dodgers considering Blake Treinen's struggles

Sasaki's two relief outings in Oklahoma City were both hitless, and his fastball velocity was sitting around 98 MPH. His command still needs some work, but it was as optimistic a sign the Dodgers could get from him.

And there's no room in the rotation. Fabian Ardaya of The Athletic predicted a Wild Card rotation of Yoshinobu Yamamoto, Blake Snell, and Shohei Ohtani, and Tyler Glasnow would undoubtedly be added to make a four-man if the Dodgers move on to the NLDS. If anyone other than them was going to get a postseason start, it'd be Clayton Kershaw. Sasaki will be in the mix for the 2026 rotation (if the Dodgers don't have him start the season in Triple-A, which should be on the table), but there's no margin for error in October.

The Dodgers should call Sasaki up for this last stretch of six games to see how he performs out of the 'pen in lower-leverage situations before adding him to the postseason roster, but it's also important to note that anyone would be better than Treinen right now.