Dodgers beat Mets behind Roki Sasaki gem, Kyle Tucker home run
NEW YORK –– Carson Benge fanned helplessly on a first-pitch splitter that darted out of the strike zone.He whiffed so badly on another one that the bat went flying out of his hands.
By the third one he saw, the Mets rookie was completely befuddled, taking a big swing and an even bigger miss.Good morning, good afternoon, good night.Hello to vintage Roki Sasaki.At his best, this is what Sasaki can do to opponents.When he arrived from Japan as a highly-touted phenom, this is what the Dodgers had expected to see.For much of his first couple seasons, of course, such moments were frustratingly infrequent.But in the Dodgers’ 4-2 defeat of the Mets on Friday night, Sasaki scarily produced them again and again and again.In a seven-inning, one-run gem that continued the momentum he built last week with another sterling performance at Yankee Stadium, Sasaki delivered more promising signs about the state of his development by striking out nine batters and generating a career-best 21 whiffs.He didn’t have the same triple-digit fastball velocities as a week ago, eclipsing the 100 mph threshold only once in his 94-pitch start.However, in an outing that included only three hits and two walks, he found other ways to look dominant again.Sasaki’s night started modestly, with the 24-year-old right-hander giving up a home run to Luis Roberts Jr.in the second inning and striking out only two batters in his first three innings.But then, he kicked things into gear, with his three-pitch humiliation of Benge in the fourth inning highlighting a stretch of seven strikeouts in an 11-batter sequence.In that time, the Dodgers turned around their early deficit, getting sacrifice flies from Miguel Rojas in the fourth and Shohei Ohtani in the seventh.
Then Kyle Tucker drilled a two-run homer in the eighth (his first since June 27, and one of the three times he reached base Friday).And from there, Sasaki and the Dodgers’ bullpen wouldn’t relinquish the lead again, rolling to a third-s...