National media, MLB might be sugarcoating Roki Sasaki's minor improvements too much

Roki Sasaki was always fated to become one of MLB's darlings, no matter who he signed with out of his ultra-competitive free agency, but that was only heightened when he chose the Dodgers. Even Dodgers fans have to admit that the team gets sometimes ridiculously outsized attention from the league, and MLB does very little to hide their favoritism.

The hype for Sasaki has resulted in an eagle-eyed view of his rehab assignment, whereas most others pass by completely unaddressed, unless something particularly awesome or terrible happens. So far, Sasaki's rehab assignment has given fans more cause for concern than celebration, but his struggles are sort of getting looked over in favor of highlighting the baseline fact that he's on his way back to the majors.

His third rehab appearance yielded another less-than-ideal line — 3 2/3 IP, 5 H, 3 ER, 2 BB, 4 K — and raised his Triple-A ERA to 7.00, but MLB chose to highlight his uptick in velocity and the strikeouts as improvements rather than reflect too long on the entire picture of a guy who's clearly still struggling to find his footing.

Roki Sasaki's improvements in Dodgers rehab assignment might be a little overblown

Sasaki's fastball velocity topped out at 98.8 MPH, which is a marked improvement from the 94-95 he was sitting at during his first outing. The splitter also generated seven whiffs, which is a good sign. However, his command is still eluding him a little if the walks are anything to go off of — the first one was a leadoff to JJ Wetherholt on four straight balls way out of the zone — and he needed 20 pitches to get four strikeouts.

There's still little reason to dismiss Sasaki outright because of these struggles; he hasn't nearly pitched enough in American professional baseball to say with absolute confidence that he's a wash. However, both the Dodgers and MLB might have to concede that expectations were a little too high, and that he might need some more time in the minors to fully adjust.

The current plan is get Sasaki back with the major league team, even if he turns into a bullpen arm for the rest of the season and in the postseason. He may only stay in Oklahoma City for one more start, despite the fact that he has yet to reach the team's baseline goal of four innings in his last three starts.

The spotlight and outside pressure may be an influence on the Dodgers to bring him back despite subpar performances, but why rush him? The roster is absolutely packed with pitchers as it is, and more help is on the way, so it might be better for all parties involved to take some pressure off of 2025 and set sights on improving for next year.