Rival Hitter Raves About Dodgers' Roki Sasaki: 'He's Figured It Out'

Los Angeles Dodgers starting pitcher Roki Sasaki put together the best outing of his MLB career this past week.

Sasaki fired seven innings of work against the Los Angeles Angels, allowing one run and four hits with eight strikeouts. He didn't give up a single walk.

Following the dominant performance from Sasaki, he received all kinds of praise, including from Angels first baseman Nolan Schanuel, who believes that Sasaki has finally figured everything out on the mound.

“He’s got good stuff,” Schanuel said. “He came in and threw strikes. You could tell he’s been working, because we faced him in the [exhibition] Freeway Series and he was kind of all over the place. He’s figured it out.

"He’s got good stuff. His fastball had good run, good ride, and then when he threw that splitter and it matched plane with the fastball, it was hard to tell the two apart. He just came and threw his best today.”

Sasaki's pitch mix was electric against the Angels, and he had batters guessing throughout the game. This outing was much-needed, especially considering that Sasaki had struggled to find any form of consistency on the mound this year.

After a rough spring training, Sasaki's issues continued during the regular season, with some even believing that the Dodgers should demote him. But the team stood by Sasaki during his problems, staying consistent with the message that they believe in his ability.

Overall, Sasaki has put up an ERA of 5.09 for the season across eight starts. This performance against the Angels was the first time that he had pitched into the seventh inning, showing great signs of improvement.

Since he came over to the Dodgers last season, Sasaki has been held in high regard within the organization. But his troubles as a starting pitcher have been concerning, even if the franchise has stood by him all along.

If Sasaki can sustain this type of performance moving forward, the Dodgers could end up getting the highly viewed player that they signed last season.

It seems that Sasaki has figured something out after this performance against the Angels, and he'll look to take that into his next start against the Milwaukee Brewers.

Sasaki is scheduled to take the mound on Saturday in the second game of the series in Milwaukee.

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