The Los Angeles have been troubled by pitching hardships throughout the season, but Saga’s latest updates are bewildering, to say the least.
A day after manager Dave Roberts said it was “fair” that Sasaki planned to go out for a long time, general manager Brandon Gomez provided more context about the 23-year-old’s absence.
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“He threw some preo balls today, so his arms are moving. It’s a good mood to come out, so now I’m continuing to build the foundation and try to get him to the point where he feels a good throw and goes from there,” Gomez said. “What it looks like, it’s still a very early stage in the process. But (he) felt good to come out today, so it was positive, so I hope we continue to build from it.”
On Friday, another twist occurred in Sasaki’s injury as the rookie officially resumed his slow program.
Sasaki had shoulder discomfort and escalated to land on April 16th on the list injured in a shoulder collision.
The right-hander had captivated the mound with professional baseball in Japan over the past four seasons and was a very popular prospect when he planned to jump to MLB this winter. Throughout his career in Japan, his 2.10 ERA has not been accurately translated to North America as he posted a 4.72 ERA in his first eight starts with the .
One of the main attractions about Sasaki was his splitter, as he was only 23 years old and in addition to earning a career of 5.76 strikeout-to-walk ratio with NPB. His orders and times do not show their full potential with his first handful of MLB starts, but the splitters remain strong.
Batters have a batting average of just .158 against that and are swinging and missing by offering 35% of the time. His fastball speed is in the 78th percentile of active pitchers, far from average, but batters average .258 against that.
The hope is that as his shoulders recover, the speed of the heater will once again trick the opposing batsman, and Sasaki’s legend will be filled with uniforms.
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Photo credit: Mark J. Rebilas-Immagn Image
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