Roki Sasaki is coming into his own

Roki Sasaki logged seven scoreless innings with a career-high 10 strikeouts on Friday. (Carrie Giordano/Los Angeles Dodgers)

by Cary Osborne

Roki Sasaki allowed his first hit of the game on Friday with one out in the fifth inning — a double by Angels second baseman Nick Madrigal.

With Madrigal to his back and two outs and two strikes to Angels designated hitter Adam Frazier in a scoreless game, Sasaki threw a splitter that dove below the zone. Frazier swung and missed. And then a rarity occurred.

Sasaki, soft-spoken and typically reserved, hopped off the mound and beat his chest once with his right hand. The strikeout produced the biggest show of emotion we have seen from the right-handed starting pitcher since he arrived in the Major Leagues last season.

Sasaki produced the best game of his Major League career.

After the best month of his Major League career — not including last October — Sasaki notched a career-high 10 strikeouts over seven shutout innings. He allowed two hits and two walks.

The game was decided by a Freddie Freeman walk-off home run in the bottom of the ninth inning, giving the Dodgers a 1–0 win against the Angels at UNIQLO Field at Dodger Stadium. But it was Sasaki who put the Dodgers in the position to pull out the win.

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“This is the guy that we saw on video in Japan, and that we hoped to get,” said manager Dave Roberts. ”I think that we’re all guilty of expecting it to be seamless and (it was) certainly unfair to Roki, and not appreciating that there has to be some transition period. And he’s went through some tough times and some doubts, but he’s gotten to the other side.”

If the month of May was growth for the 24-year-old, Friday was a full growth spurt.

For the second game in a row, Sasaki’s velocity was up. His 73.5% strike percentage (72 strikes out of 98 pitches) was a career high, including a career-high 21 called strikes. The called strikes were often impressive, including three on the edge of the strike zone for strike three.

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Angels right fielder Jo Adell saw one in the fourth inning that scraped the bottom of the zone. He stood for a moment in the batter’s box. The Angels still had a challenge that he could have used, so it had to be a moment of incredulity for Adell.

Sasaki baffled more hitters, but he was also efficient in finishing off at-bats. His longest inning was 17 pitches — which he reached in the third and fourth innings.

His 10 strikeouts beat his previous career best of eight against these same Angels on May 17.

Sasaki has a 1.48 ERA with 29 strikeouts to five walks in 24 1/3 innings over his last four starts — beginning with that May 17 game. Opponents are hitting .176 against him with a .284 slugging percentage.

He entered that May 17 game with a 5.88 ERA. It’s down to 4.03.

The difference maker has been his hard splitter. Sasaki was throwing a forkball at the beginning of the 2026 season — a low-spin, offspeed pitch that averaged 85 mph. The splitter, which he moved toward in May, is 5 mph faster and has double the spin rate.

Opponents are 8-for-52 against the splitter this season.

“I feel like I’m confident just keeping going forward and attacking hitters,” Sasaki said.

That’s clear. Clear from his body language. And clear from his willingness to attack hitters in the strike zone.

Sasaki was considered one of the most talented pitchers to ever come out of Japan when he arrived with the Dodgers as a Major Leaguer in 2025.

He rode bumps throughout the 2025 regular season. And things remained uneven in April. There’s a lot of confidence that he is past that.

“Now it just feels like every time he runs out there, we’re going to get a start like this,” Freeman said. “Roki’s really turned the corner here, and it’s fun to watch, especially after last year — grinding, coming back as a bullpen guy, and doing this, and now finding his footing and being a dominant starter is pretty cool.”