Roki Sasaki wild in MLB debut in Tokyo, but Dodgers back him with three HRs
TOKYO — Surrounding the Tokyo Dome is an area called Tokyo Dome City. It features shops, restaurants and a number of attractions including a roller coaster for adventurous visitors.
Inside the dome Wednesday night, the Dodgers were taken on their own high-speed, up-and-down thrill ride.
Roki Sasaki’s first six pitches as a major leaguer ranged from 99.4 to 100.5 mph. But he walked five of the first 12 batters he faced – struck out three including two with the bases loaded – and hit the strike zone with less than half of his pitches (25 of 56), lasting just three innings in his much-anticipated MLB debut.
But the Dodgers hit three home runs – including one crowd-pleaser by Shohei Ohtani – and beat the Chicago Cubs 6-3 to sweep the two-game Tokyo Series and return home with a week to re-acclimate their body clocks before resuming regular-season play with their home opener on March 27.
“I think when you get youth and talent, which is Roki, what that introduces is variance,” Dodgers manager Dave Roberts said before Wednesday’s game. “And so there’s going to be some really high highs, and then some things that you just don’t know that are gonna happen because of his inexperience.”
Unlike Sasaki’s command, Roberts was spot on.
The 23-year-old right-hander retired the side on 11 pitches in the first inning, making fellow countryman Seiya Suzuki his first major-league strikeout victim when Suzuki tipped a 99.3 mph fastball into Will Smith’s glove.
In the second inning, though, Sasaki started to get off track. He walked two but got out of trouble when Pete Crow-Armstrong lined into an inning-ending double play.
“I know he’s pitching at home in Japan, but it’s still his first big league start,” Dodgers third baseman Max Muncy said. “Yesterday, he made a couple comments to a couple guys that he might have been a little bit nervous coming into today. It’s to be expected, man. This is the big leagues.
“I still thought he went out there and competed, and that, to me, is what I take out of that start. I know he was a little erratic with command, but I saw him compete.”
Sasaki retired Carson Kelly on a ground out to start the third inning but Jon Berti reached on an infield single. Sasaki threw 16 pitches to the next three hitters, getting just four strikes. The three consecutive walks forced in a run.
Left in the game despite the wayward command, Sasaki got a visit from pitching coach Mark Prior and struck out Michael Busch, freezing him for a called third strike on a 98-mph fastball, and Matt Shaw to escape further damage. Shaw went down swinging at a Sasaki splitter.
“The main thing is, the split has got to be presented as a strike,” Roberts said in another prescient pregame analysis. “If it looks like a strike out of the hand, it’s going to be a very effective pitch.”
It wasn’t very effective.
Touted by at least one hyperbolic analyst as possibly “the best pitch in the world,” Sasaki’s splitter was not ready for its major-league premiere. Sasaki threw 15 of them but the Cubs weren’t fooled. They swung just twice. Only one other was called a strike.
“I struggled with the command of my splitter today, especially not being able to throw it over the plate,” Sasaki said through an interpreter. “That wasn’t something that I had an issue with in my previous spring training outings. So in some ways it was a good thing to have that issue come up today. There’s a lot that’s different — the environment, the temperature, that kind of thing. So I want to make sure that I have solutions based on the environment that I’m in and self-correct.”
Pitching in the Tokyo Dome felt “almost like an international tournament” and not his major-league debut, Sasaki said.
“I think it was a really good thing that I was able to pitch with like a good nervousness,” he said. “I think it was a really excellent environment created by the Japanese fans, an environment that’s unique to Japan. I think it’ll be different from what it’ll be like in the United States.”
Whatever nerves Sasaki might have been feeling in his debut, his Dodgers teammates did their best to calm them with offensive support.
They scored twice in the second inning against Cubs starter Justin Steele on a leadoff walk of Smith, a double by Max Muncy, a run-scoring passed ball and a sacrifice fly by Kiké Hernandez.
Tommy Edman hit the first home run of the major-league season, a solo home run in the third inning, then Hernandez added two more RBIs to his night with a home run in the fourth.
But the highlight of the show in the eyes of the 42,367 in attendance came in the fifth inning when Ohtani drove a 2-and-2 fastball from Cubs reliever Nate Pearson into the first row of seats in right-center field – a moment no doubt captured on thousands of cellphones as every Ohtani at-bat this week was played out in front of rows of the personal devices aimed at him.
The play was close enough to merit a replay review. The announcement affirming the home run call drew as big a cheer as any umpire will get this season.
“You know, I know Shohei puts his pants on just like we all do, one leg at a time. But if there’s ever a super hero, I think Shohei just seems like a super hero,” Roberts said after the game. “In the biggest of games or the biggest of moments, he seems to always deliver.”
Cubs manager Craig Counsell was on the opposite end of fan favor in the seventh inning when he intentionally walked Ohtani after Andy Pages’ two-out double. The Cubs had clawed back within three runs by then – which failed to justify Counsell’s move in the eyes of the crowd.
Ohtani came up again in the ninth with two runners on — but drew an unintentional walk to load the bases before Edman bounced into a double play.
“The passion and the engagement was amazing,” Miguel Rojas said of the Tokyo Series. “All the fans really show up every single day, and they enjoy the show, and they love the game, and they really were into it, every single pitch, every single out.”