MILWAUKEE — The Dodgers have talked of Roki Sasaki ‘turning the corner’ so many times already that he seems to keep ending up back where he started.
But he might actually be getting somewhere.
Sasaki gave up three runs in the first inning on Saturday night, putting the Dodgers in a hole. But he recovered, retired the final 10 batters he faced and the Dodgers blew it open late, beating the Milwaukee Brewers, 11-3, behind a six-RBI night from Teoscar Hernandez.
The bullpen inherited a one-run lead and followed Sasaki with four scoreless innings, extending a scoreless streak for the relief crew to 36 innings, the longest in franchise history during the modern era (since 1901).
The win was the Dodgers’ first regular-season victory over the Brewers after nine consecutive defeats stretching to 2024.
“It seemed a little like Groundhog Day that first inning, how it started,” Dodgers manager Dave Roberts said of Sasaki’s rough start. “But for Roki to find a way to get out of it with three runs, and then settle in, settle down – his stuff got better in the third, fourth and fifth innings, and I told him that.
“Young pitchers, to understand that even if you get hit in the mouth early, you gotta find a way to keep going, so you don’t blow up your bullpen. … He earned himself a win, and we won a ball game. So I give him a lot of credit.”
Sasaki was looking to build on the best start of his MLB career – seven innings with one run allowed and eight strikeouts against the Angels last week.
The first inning Saturday looked nothing like that.
Jackson Chourio and Brice Turang led off with back-to-back doubles and Sasaki compounded his problems when he fielded Andrew Vaughn’s swinging bunt and threw wildly to first base. A walk and a single by Sal Frelick pushed across another run before Gary Sanchez was thrown out trying to go first to third on Frelick’s hit, getting Sasaki out of the inning.
“There was nothing I could change in the first inning, so my focus was just to keep us in the inning and stay focused,” Sasaki said through his interpreter. “I’m glad I was able to do that.”
With two outs in the second inning, Chourio doubled again and Sasaki walked Turang. To that point, seven of the first 11 Brewers had reached base – four hits, two walks and Sasaki’s error. It had the potential to be the kind of start that would erase whatever progress Sasaki had made a week earlier.
But he retired the next 10 Brewers in order. After throwing 35 pitches in the first inning, Sasaki strung together four more innings on 52 pitches.
“It’s a sign of a young player starting to really grow up and understand his responsibility to the team,” Roberts said. “You need to take down innings and outs as a starting pitcher. And it’s not always gonna be easy. That’s a learning moment that he could have folded. And I think that last year, it might have been tougher for him to get through that first inning. But he got through it and went four more scoreless. So (it is) continued growth for Roki. And I’m really impressed, because it seems like every outing, he is learning and getting better as a major-league pitcher.”
By the time Sasaki finished his day’s work, the Dodgers’ offense had erased his rough start with one big inning of its own.
Freddie Freeman and Andy Pages led off the fourth inning against Brewers starter Robert Gasser with back-to-back doubles. For Freeman, it was the 561st double of his career, moving him into 30th place all-time (breaking a tie with Jeff Kent and Eddie Murray).
After a fly out, Kyle Tucker drew a walk, putting two runners on with one out for Hernandez. Hernandez fell behind 0-and-2 and Gasser came inside off the plate with a sweeper. It stayed up and Hernandez lofted a high fly ball down the left field line that clipped the foul pole for a three-run home run.
“We took the lead, and that was the best thing,” Hernandez said. “We put less pressure on Sasaki, so he could keep pitching the way he was pitching after the first inning. So it was a great inning. We put together good at-bats, and I will say that when you put together good at-bats, positive things are going to happen.”
Sasaki passed the one-run lead on to a bullpen that hasn’t been charged with a run since May 12 against the San Francisco Giants. Alex Vesia and Kyle Hurt tempted fate by walking the leadoff man in each of their innings before retiring the side.
But the Dodgers broke the game open after that, turning a one-run lead into a rout with seven runs over the final two innings. Hernandez drove in three of them with singles in the eighth and ninth innings, continuing a breakout after slumping for most of a month. Since being moved down in the lineup 10 games ago, Hernandez is 15 for 37 (.405) with three doubles, three home runs and 12 RBIs.
“I just think that he’s heightened his focus,” Roberts said. “I think that his at-bat quality has been considerably better. I don’t think he’s wasting at-bats, like – for me personally, early on, I think that there was a couple of at-bats per night that he was just giving away. And now, the last eight days, something like that, I don’t see him giving away any at-bats. And the production has reflected that.”
Brewers relievers walked six in the final two innings, part of a season-high 11 walks drawn by the Dodgers (four by Freeman).
“There’s no ‘Let’s walk more’ in our hitters meeting,” Freeman said. “I think guys are just starting to feel better about themselves, hunting lanes, finding the right pitches to hit and taking the ones that are not. A lot of guys are feeling better about themselves, feeling better about their swings. That usually leads to swinging at good pitches.”
