The Dodgers' bullpen was exactly as bad as feared, but Roki Sasaki looked like the answer

Ronald Martinez via Getty Images

The current state of the Los Angeles Dodgers' bullpen is this: In a unit filled with veterans, some highly paid and some battle-tested across multiple postseasons, it was a 23-year-old rookie making his third career relief appearance who looked most comfortable in the wild-card series.

That would be Roki Sasaki, who pitched a 1-2-3 ninth and looked dominant doing it. With a fastball sitting in the triple digits, Sasaki posted two strikeouts and ended the series, roughly a week after returning from the injured list.

Overall, the Dodgers' bullpen was awful this week. They still won, beating the Cincinnati Reds 8-4 on Thursday to become the only team to post a sweep this round, but the eighth inning in both games illustrated how dire the situation has become.

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In Game 1, Blake Snell looked excellent and left the game after seven innings. By the time Alex Vesia, arguably the Dodgers' most consistent reliever this season, entered the game, L.A. was up 10-2. And then he, Edgardo Henriquez and Jack Dreyer lost the strike zone and yielded two hits, four walks and three runs before finally escaping the frame.

Together, the trio threw 59 pitches, the most seen in a single MLB postseason inning since pitch counts began being tracked.

In Game 2, Yoshinobu Yamamoto looked excellent and left the game after 6 2/3 innings with the Dodgers leading 7-2. And, again, Emmet Sheehan and Vesia combined to yield two hits, three walks and two runs in the eighth inning. 

How bad was it? Sheehan was ahead 0-2 against Reds pinch-hitter Will Benson until again losing his command and nearly hitting the batter. Dodgers manager Dave Roberts had seen enough and lifted Sheehan, mid-at-bat, for Vesia, who got credit for the strikeout with one pitch.

Expectations were low for the Dodgers' bullpen going into this postseason, and they met them. They got away with it because they were facing a Reds offense that ranked second lowest among all playoff teams in wOBA. Now they get the Philadelphia Phillies in the NLDS. If they perform similarly, the Dodgers' starting pitchers are going to have to leave the game with a lead much larger than five or six runs.

Ultimately, there were only two relievers used who can leave the wild-card round with a modicum of confidence. One is Blake Treinen, who had a brutal September — at one point taking the loss in five straight Dodgers losses, an unprecedented MLB feat — but managed to throw a scoreless ninth in Game 1, then ended the seventh inning for Yamamoto without issue in Game 2.

The other is Sasaki, who has taken quite a journey into becoming a potential relief ace for the Dodgers.

Roki Sasaki's long, winding road to the playoffs

You might remember Sasaki signing with the Dodgers several months ago, which was seen as so unfair at the time that several people started discussing a salary cap almost purely to hobble the defending champions.

Going into the season, Sasaki was one of the most-hyped pitching prospects in recent baseball history, boasting triple-digit heat and arguably the best splitter in the world. He joined a Dodgers rotation that featured two other Japanese stars in Yamamoto and Shohei Ohtani, and the expectation was that he would be the latest monster to emerge from the Dodgers' pitching machine.

That didn't exactly happen. Sasaki was hyped, yes, but one thing that frequently went unnoticed last offseason was that his velocity saw a downturn in 2024. Despite the Dodgers' efforts, that continued in 2025 and the result was a nearly unusable starting pitcher. Sasaki landed on the IL with a shoulder impingement in May after posting a 4.72 ERA and 6.19 FIP in eight starts.

Hitters had no trouble with Sasaki's fastball when it was sitting in the mid-90s, and having only two other real offerings — his otherworldly splitter and an OK slider — didn't help, nor did an inability to regularly find the strike zone. 

Sasaki remained on the IL for four-and-a-half months. When he came back, the Dodgers had little use for him as a starter. Ohtani, Yamamoto, Snell, Tyler Glasnow, Clayton Kershaw and Sheehan were doing just fine as a six-man rotation, to the point the latter two are expected to be only used in the postseason as relievers (if at all, in Kershaw's case).

So Sasaki made the transition to the bullpen, and it was clear from his first appearance that he and the Dodgers had done something during his time off.

Roki Sasaki, Bullpen Edition looks completely different for Dodgers

In two relief appearances last week, Sasaki threw two scoreless innings and looked so good it was basically a given he would be on the wild-card roster.

That fastball hitters were crushing? They whiffed on it three times in six swings while it sat around 99 mph. That splitter that was supposed to be a weapon from Day 1? Four times in six swings. That iffy slider? No longer used.

It was a small sample size, but the Dodgers' bullpen looked enough like a liability that he immediately became an attractive option. And that came to pass on Wednesday, when Sasaki looked even better in his first taste of postseason action.

That's how you go from being a mediocre starter to the manager of the current World Series favorite at BetMGM being asked if he is now the closer, after three total relief appearances. 

Per Jack Harris of the Los Angeles Times, Roberts stopped short of saying Sasaki is the closer, but he indicated the trust is there for high-leverage situations:

“I trust him, and he's going to be pitching in leverage,” Dave Roberts said. “So the more you pitch guys and play guys, you learn more … I don't think the moment's going to be too big for Roki.”

Again, we are talking about a guy with three career relief appearances, but that's just a reflection of how bad the rest of the Dodgers' bullpen is. The Dodgers dropped $111 million combined on Treinen, Tanner Scott and Kirby Yates to turn what was already a strength into a fortress, only for the whole thing to fall apart in September.

Sasaki almost certainly has some bad innings ahead of him as the Dodgers continue their postseason run. That's just how relievers work. It's still better than the alternative for now.