Roki Sasaki's disastrous spring debut resurrects Dodgers fans' fears from 2025

Roki Sasaki's comeback after a rough rookie season as a starter has already been an interesting narrative to follow in spring training. When asked about Sasaki's outlook in the rotation, Dave Roberts didn't hesitate to say that his pitcher still had a lot of work to do — namely, adding another pitch to his arsenal. (Sasaki has since said he's working on two).

And then there was some disagreement about Sasaki's amenability to accepting help from Dodgers staff. Dylan Hernández of the new California Post noted that, despite Sasaki receiving guidance from Rob Hill during his long stint in Triple-A last year, he insisted that his improvements at the end of the season were self-motivated.

Some fans assumed that was an overblown and unfair assessment from Hernández, but no matter where you come down, it all comes back to a question the Dodgers desperately need answered this season: does Sasaki have what it takes to be a major league starter?

His spring debut didn't lend much reassurance. Starting against the Diamondbacks, he gave up a leadoff single and then a walk before getting his first out. Two back-to-back doubles gave Arizona an early 3-0 lead before Sasaki punched out his next two batters.

He stayed in for the second and notched another K, but he was pulled after giving up the second walk of his outing.

Roki Sasaki didn't impress Dodgers fans during his first spring training start of the year

Sasaki's fastball got up to 98.6 MPH during his outing, which is a positive sign. His first strikeout came on a nicely painted 97 MPH fastball to Jordan Lawlar, his second on a sinker right at the bottom of the zone to Ryan Waldschmidt, and his last a cutter — also down in the zone. His sprinkled that newly developed cutter in throughout his outing to mixed results (it was the pitch Nolan Arenado hit for the Dbacks first double of the afternoon).

Of course, everyone's still shaking off cobwebs in spring training. This isn't the last we'll see of Sasaki in camp — and he's not participating in the World Baseball Classic this year because the Dodgers want to keep him close to the team.

But it didn't do anything to help the growing fear that Sasaki might be better off as a high-octane, late innings guy instead of a major league starter. The kid's still got a long way to go.