LOS ANGELES (AP) — Touted Los Angeles Dodgers rookie Roki Sasaki landed on the injured list Tuesday with right shoulder impingement, an injury similar to one he had in Japan last year.
He told the team his arm was sore after his last start, in which he pitched on five days’ rest for the first time in the majors. Sasaki threw four innings and gave up five runs on 61 pitches Friday at Arizona.
“What we gather is he’s felt some discomfort for the last few weeks,” manager Dave Roberts said after an 11-1 loss to the Athletics, “but given where we’re at as a pitching staff he wanted to continue to go and persevere and fight through everything until he felt that his performance was going to be compromised. That’s when he let us know where he was at physically.”
Sasaki underwent scans on Monday’s off day that revealed the problem. Roberts said there is no timeline for his return.
“I don’t think that any expectation is fair to him,” he said.
Sasaki is 1-1 with a 4.72 ERA in eight starts. He has 24 strikeouts in 34 1/3 innings while holding opposing hitters to a .225 average. Sasaki was scheduled to start Thursday against the Athletics. Instead, the Dodgers are likely to go with a bullpen game.
Sasaki won’t pick up a baseball for a while, Roberts said.
The 23-year-old right-hander joined the Dodgers in January after spending the last four years with the Chiba Lotte Marines of the Nippon Professional Baseball League. He missed time last year with shoulder fatigue that limited him to 18 starts and 111 innings.
“We’re very grateful that with the scans that we took that it is similar to what he’s already been through before, so something familiar to him,” Roberts said. “We just feel that with some rest, getting the strength back, getting back to his normal delivery that he’s going to be just fine.”
Sasaki was known for throwing 100 mph in Japan and in his major league debut against the Chicago Cubs in Tokyo in March he repeatedly reached 99 mph in the first inning.
But he’s struggled to find that same zip on his fastball since, with his velocity dipping to the mid-90s.
“We’re still trying to have conversations to see where he’s at,” Roberts said. “At the end of the day we want to make sure that he is performing up to his capabilities and up to our capabilities and our expectations.
“There’s a lot of kind of things that we’re trying to suss out right now with Roki.”
Roberts said he doesn’t think Sasaki will spend any time in the minors.
“Our goal is to get him healthy, get him strong, make sure the delivery is sound and get him to pitch for us,” the manager said. “He hasn’t been as productive as he would have liked because he was compromised and so that’s kind of enlightening to all of us.”
Sasaki was pulled from his Dodger Stadium debut in the second inning because of control issues. His sad face and teary eyes were shown on a Japanese TV feed.
Going on the IL could provide a welcome reset for Sasaki.
“Obviously, we didn’t know what to expect this year, but to think he was going to go wire-to-wire given his track record and history of innings was probably unrealistic,” Roberts said. “This could be that little bit of reprieve in the middle of the season that we can get him back to being healthy, get him strong and a hundred percent and help us get through the World Series.”
Sasaki’s injury is the latest blow to the Dodgers’ rotation. Blake Snell and Tyler Glasnow are on the injured list, although Clayton Kershaw is scheduled to make his season debut Saturday after starting the season on the IL.
Right-hander J.P. Feyereisen was recalled for his second stint with the Dodgers. He gave up three runs and six hits in two innings of relief Tuesday.
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