{"id":375,"date":"2026-07-03T09:37:05","date_gmt":"2026-07-03T09:37:05","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/valutednews.com\/?p=375"},"modified":"2026-07-03T09:37:05","modified_gmt":"2026-07-03T09:37:05","slug":"dodgers-overcome-roki-sasakis-poor-performance-to-rout-padres","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/valutednews.com\/?p=375","title":{"rendered":"Dodgers overcome Roki Sasaki’s poor performance to rout Padres"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"Dodgers<\/div>

<\/p>\n

\n

Roki Sasaki<\/a>\u2019s abysmal appearance faded away in the Dodgers\u2019 12-7 win over<\/a> the San Diego Padres on Thursday night, but only after the National League West leaders rose from a catatonic first inning. <\/p>\n

The Dodgers roared back from a 6-0 deficit as Andy Pages skirted a tying double down the left-field line, and Mookie Betts and Max Muncy each drove in runs to give them the lead for good in a four-run fourth inning. All of which sent the sold-out Dodger Stadium crowd into jubilant celebrations, some jumping, others breaking out World Cup chants.<\/p>\n

\u201cThankfully, it played out the way I didn\u2019t expect,\u201d manager Dave Roberts said of the team\u2019s ability to turn the game around, \u201cor the way it started.\u201d<\/p>\n

By the time the game ended, Sasaki\u2019s three-inning start seemed like a murky nightmare the Dodgers<\/a> awoke from in a sweat. Except the Dodgers weren\u2019t dreaming, and the team hadn\u2019t done much to assuage the concerns with Sasaki.<\/p>\n

The problem with Sasaki isn\u2019t his stuff. On his best nights, when the velocity and command combine, Sasaki blows past batters with a triple-digit fastball and cutting off-speed pitches. The problem has been how to tick the radar without making the strike zone look like a Jackson Pollock painting \u2014 and recently, it has.<\/p>\n

Sasaki\u2019s June swoon, impervious to the calendar change, continued into Thursday\u2019s series opener against the Padres, in which the right-hander gave up three home runs among seven hits before Roberts called it quits going into the fourth inning.<\/p>\n

\u201cThey were on everything,\u201d Roberts said. \u201cYou could see it.\u201d<\/p>\n

One possible concern? Tipping pitches. While Roberts and catcher Dalton Rushing said the team would need to do more research into Sasaki\u2019s start, both left the door open to this answer.<\/p>\n

\u201cThat would be a big explanation as to how they felt like they were on every pitch,\u201d Rushing said.<\/p>\n

As San Diego chugged through its lineup, Sasaki struggled to keep up. With his first pitch, he gave up a double to Fernando Tatis Jr., who scored on Manny Machado\u2019s home run that left center fielder Pages staring at the ball\u2019s path as it plopped down on the other side of the blue outfield fence.<\/p>\n

The inning was only a preview of the Padres\u2019 power. Each of the nine San Diego batters got his chance against Sasaki in the second, and the team quickly dug the Dodgers into a six-run hole. He surrendered two home runs in the second inning. Jackson Merrill blasted a ball to left-center field leading off, and, two outs later, Jake Cronenworth drove in two runs with a shot to right-center.<\/p>\n

Sasaki said through interpreter Kensuke Okubo that he needed to work on his command, but he felt like his fastball was good.<\/p>\n

\n
\"Roki <\/picture>\n
\n

Roki Sasaki has his head down after giving up a solo homer to Jackson Merrill in the second inning.<\/p>\n

(Gina Ferazzi \/ Los Angeles Times)<\/p>\n<\/p><\/div>\n<\/figure><\/div>\n

\u201cI don\u2019t think my stuff was bad today,\u201d Sasaki said. \u201cOverall, it wasn\u2019t great but a lot of things evolved.\u201d<\/p>\n

Part of Sasaki\u2019s issue lies with his approach. Roberts said he wants the second-year pitcher to be aggressive, to play the cat-and-mouse game required to beat batters in the box. But when given the opportunity, Sasaki has shrunken in recent outings, struggling with his command and his ability to pitch deep into games.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe had a great May, so let\u2019s just get back to competing and making pitches,\u201d Roberts said.<\/p>\n

When reliever Will Klein walked out to the mound in the fourth to the aggressive, rambunctious clamor of the Dropkick Murphys\u2019 \u201cI\u2019m Shipping Up to Boston\u201d and collected two scoreless, one-hit innings, the relief was immediate: The Dodgers took the lead.<\/p>\n

The lineup already was revving, as Rushing homered in the second inning while Sasaki was still in the game, and both Kyle Tucker and Muncy drove in runs off starter Randy Vasquez in the third, cutting the deficit to two. The Dodgers broke through against the Padres\u2019 bullpen to score six runs in the fourth and fifth innings.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe bullpen was fantastic tonight, and then the offense came up big,\u201d Roberts said.<\/p>\n

A late catch by Pages helped close out the game after he gloved a ball despite ramming into the padding of the center field wall. A combined effort by Paul Gervase and Tanner Scott shut down San Diego\u2019s ninth-inning momentum after it pushed across a run.<\/p>\n

\u201cTurned back around, was able to find the ball and make a really good catch right there,\u201d Tucker said of Pages. \u201cThat was a huge out.\u201d<\/p>\n

The Dodgers (57-31) beat their division rivals for the fifth time in seven games to open a 13-game lead over both San Diego and Arizona. The Padres, meanwhile, have lost six straight and given up 66 runs over the last six days, the most in such a span in franchise history. <\/p>\n

But San Diego\u2019s flaws don\u2019t negate the Dodgers\u2019 as they burned through six relievers in their win. So, while the Dodgers crawled out of the hole with a season-high 17 hits, the steep cost heightens the pressure on the rest of the rotation the rest of the series.<\/p>\n<\/p><\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Roki Sasaki\u2019s abysmal appearance faded away in the Dodgers\u2019 12-7 win over the San Diego Padres on Thursday night, but only after the National League West leaders rose from a catatonic first inning. The Dodgers roared back from a 6-0 deficit as Andy Pages skirted a tying double down the left-field line, and Mookie Betts…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":376,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"fifu_image_url":"https:\/\/ca-times.brightspotcdn.com\/dims4\/default\/c075d4c\/2147483647\/strip\/true\/crop\/4828x2535+0+0\/resize\/1200x630!\/quality\/75\/?url=https%3A%2F%2Fcalifornia-times-brightspot.s3.amazonaws.com%2F07%2F9c%2Fb845f408403ba4f87b7b6beb17b9%2F1560804-sp-mlb-dodgers-padres-3-gmf.jpg","fifu_image_alt":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[16],"tags":[767,768,774,772,771,769,773,770],"class_list":["post-375","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-sports","tag-dodgers","tag-overcome","tag-padres","tag-performance","tag-poor","tag-roki","tag-rout","tag-sasakis"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/valutednews.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/375","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/valutednews.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/valutednews.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/valutednews.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/valutednews.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=375"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/valutednews.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/375\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/valutednews.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/376"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/valutednews.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=375"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/valutednews.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=375"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/valutednews.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=375"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}