Dodgers are stuck with Roki Sasaki and his massive pitching problems: Mindset thing

It’s in him.He’s shown it.Somewhere inside of Roki Sasaki, there are qualities of a frontline starter.Here’s something else that’s equally certain: Sasaki has no control over his gifts.As much as he said he’s become more familiar with the intricacies of a delivery that used to perform without thinking, it’s clear he still doesn’t really know what he’s doing.Sasaki might have a general idea about what he has to do to, say, generate velocity, but he doesn’t understand the concepts well enough to where he can feel them in his body.He’s not Yoshinobu Yamamoto.In the wake of his three-inning, six-run implosion on Thursday night in the Dodgers’ 12-7 victory over the San Diego Padres, the question isn’t whether Sasaki has lost his feel.He obviously has.The question is about what the Dodgers should do with him now that he’s been charged with 19 runs in 17 innings over his last four starts. With Blake Snell and Tyler Glasnow still on the injured list, manager Dave Roberts said Sasaki would take his next turn in the rotation.“I just don’t think right now we have another alternative,” Roberts said.Roberts offered a possible explanation for why Sasaki was hit as hard as he was.“They were on everything Roki threw,” Roberts said.“You could see it.

Everything.I don’t know if he was tipping his pitches, but they were on everything.”Sasaki said that while it was possible the Padres knew what he was about to throw, there were other reasons they whacked him.“I think the poor quality of pitches I threw was also a factor,” Sasaki said in Japanese.Credit Sasaki for not burying his head in the sand.

The first step in correcting a problem is to acknowledge there is one, and Sasaki did that – to a degree.For the second consecutive start, Sasaki failed to crack 100 mph with his fastball.For the second consecutive start, his average fastball velocity was less than 98 mph.Which could be why, unlike in some of his previous starts, he was punis...