Even Dodgers fans have to admit Roki Sasaki's playoff run was luckiest transformation ever

Five starts into his sophomore season, Roki Sasaki has plateaued. His latest effort was a five-inning, four-run outing against the Cubs on Saturday, which matched his season high in innings pitched and set a new low in walks allowed (one), but also matched his season high in hits (seven) and set a new high in home runs (three). He struck out five and hit a batter.

Every time we see an improvement in one area, he gets worse in another. It's uncanny, really.

This kind of prolonged failure makes his flash-in-the-pan success as the Dodgers' postseason closer last year even more baffling. He gave up just a single earned run in 10 2/3 innings from the Wild Card through the World Series. The Dodgers' almost completely untrustworthy bullpen had at least one guy they could truly rely on.

Fans hoped that it might help Sasaki's confidence, too. Even if he was privately unhappy being relegated to the bullpen, it was the first time in a bad and injury-plagued rookie season that fans were truly on his side — and the timing couldn't have been better.

We're still not that far removed from October, but every Sasaki start makes his success feel more and more distant.

Roki Sasaki's middling-to-bad performances make Dodgers postseason success even stranger

Dodgers writers have already laid out plenty of reasons why the team should move him back to the bullpen, mostly based on the fact that he simply doesn't look like he's cut out to be a starter right now. But the numbers back it up. Opponents are hitting .225 with a .645 OPS against him his first time through the order, and then they either figure him out or he loses his stuff (or both), and they hit .405 with a 1.376 OPS his second time through.

Both the Dodgers and Sasaki have said everything they can possibly say. The Dodgers are treating him like a prospect with endless amounts of leeway and still believe in him as a starter. Sasaki says he's getting better at making in-game adjustments, even if the results suggest otherwise.

At this point, we won't hold our breath for a demotion, either to the bullpen or to Triple-A. We all know the Dodgers can be incredibly hard-nosed when it comes to players they believe in, and a lot of their pride hinges on whether or not Sasaki can hack it. We'd say they're embarrassing themselves the longer they let this go on and the longer they keep saying the same things, but they aren't budging.

Add us as a preferred source on Google

Follow