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When the Los Angeles Dodgers were one of many teams around the league hoping to land international phenom Roki Sasaki this offseason, fastball velocity was a major point of conversation.
In fact, it was the subject of a homework assignment that Sasaki and his agent gave teams to see how they would analyze and communicate information with the young pitcher.
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Sasaki is coming off a personal MLB-high 98-pitch performance in his first win in a Dodgers uniform, but his usual triple-digit fastball was averaging 94.8 mph, with a max speed of 96.7 mph on Saturday.
Dodgers pitching coach Mark Prior provided some insight as to why Sasaki — who has still been getting batters to swing and miss — isn’t getting his usual fastball velocity.
“Roki, everybody knows he throws 100,” Prior said. “He’s not throwing 100 with us. That’s something that I think he was trying to train and get to it, which we tried to help as much as we could. But he also felt like it affected his command tremendously in those first couple outings.”
Sasaki’s first two starts consisted of nine walks in 4.2 innings pitched with four hits, three earned runs and five strikeouts. Since then, he has 19 strikeouts to 11 walks and has allowed 10 runs over his next five starts.
His total ERA this season sits at 3.86.
Sacrificing a few miles per hour for more command on his pitches may have to be the tradeoff for the young pitcher for now as he is still only seven games into his MLB career.
“I’m not exactly satisfied with my fastball quality,” Sasaki said. “But mixing in my other pitches, as long as I command my other pitches well, then I feel like I can get major-league hitters out.”
While Sasaki is by no means a finished product — and the 23-year-old would be the first to admit that — some of the adjustments Prior would want to make can’t necessarily be made at the major league level, where the team intends to keep Sasaki for a long time.
“We’re kind of in bed with where we’re at,” Prior said. “Those are things that you would do in more of a minor-league setting to where you can take some of those growing pains that might come with it. I don’t think we’re in a position of — we know we’re probably going through some growing pains as it is, but probably don’t want to voluntarily add to that. This whole year is going to be a learning curve for all of us. As it always is.”
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Photo Credit: Kiyoshi Mio-Imagn Images
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