It’s a good thing that veteran hurler Clayton Kershaw is nearing a return, as the Dodgers starting rotation took another hit this week. Prized offseason acquisition Roki Sasaki has been placed on the injured list due to a right shoulder impingement the team confirmed late Tuesday.
Sasaki pitched on 5 days rest for the first time in the Majors his last time out, and reported soreness in the shoulder of his throwing arm shortly thereafter.
“What we gather is he’s felt some discomfort for the last few weeks,” manager Dave Roberts told reporters, “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.”
The 23 year old is 1-1 with a 4.72 ERA across eight MLB starts. He has 24 strikeouts in 34.1 innings while holding opposing hitters to a .225 average. Sasaki was previously scheduled to start Thursday against the Athletics, but because of the injury the Dodgers are now likely to deploy their bullpen for a game.
“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.”
“We’re still trying to have conversations to see where he’s at,” Roberts continued. “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…Our goal is to get him healthy, get him strong, make sure the delivery is sound and get him to pitch for us…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.”
“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 in a long line of injuries for the Dodgers. Blake Snell and Tyler Glasnow are both on the injured list, and Clayton Kershaw has yet to pitch an inning as he works his way back from a toe/knee injury.
6’3″ righty Tony Gonsolin recently made his return to the lineup, providing a brief set of reinforcements for LA’s rotation. In 16 innings since his April 30th season debut, Gonsolin has recorded 21 strikeouts, and a 2.81 ERA.
Los Angeles is next in action Wednesday vs. the Athletics in a 10:10pm ET matchup.
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