---
title: "Roki Sasaki Threw 99 Against Seattle, and the Dodgers Are Watching October"
description: "Sasaki gave the Dodgers 5⅓ innings against the Mariners on Thursday with a fastball averaging 99.1 mph and a splitter that Seattle could not touch. It was his fourth strong start in a row, and it arrives as Los Angeles decides how to use him in the postseason."
category: "Sports"
category_url: https://herald.la/category/sports
author: "Simone Bishop"
published: 2026-07-31T04:55:20.000Z
updated: 2026-07-31T04:55:20.000Z
canonical: https://herald.la/article/roki-sasaki-threw-99-against-seattle-and-the-dodgers-are-watching-october
tags: ["dodgers", "roki-sasaki", "mlb", "dodger-stadium", "playoffs"]
---
# Roki Sasaki Threw 99 Against Seattle, and the Dodgers Are Watching October

Sasaki gave the Dodgers 5⅓ innings against the Mariners on Thursday with a fastball averaging 99.1 mph and a splitter that Seattle could not touch. It was his fourth strong start in a row, and it arrives as Los Angeles decides how to use him in the postseason.

The line was good. The pitches were better.

Roki Sasaki went 5⅓ innings against the Seattle Mariners at Dodger Stadium on
Thursday, giving up five hits and two earned runs, walking three and striking out
seven. That is a solid start and not much more. What made it interesting was the
stuff behind it.

## The pitches

Sasaki's fastball
[averaged 99.1 mph, about 1.6 mph above his season average](https://sports.yahoo.com/articles/roki-sasaki-latest-start-excite-042915810.html).
The splitter, the pitch that made him a target for every team in baseball when he
came over from Japan, was close to unhittable: across 35 of them, Seattle managed
nine swings and misses, took two for called strikes, struck out four times against
it, and did not put a single ball in play hard.

The sixth inning is where it ended. "5 great innings from Roki Sasaki," wrote
Nelson Espinal, who tracked the outing. "He struggled in the 6th inning, losing
some of his juice and command."

That is the honest read: five innings of front-of-rotation stuff, then a visible
drop. It was also his fourth consecutive strong start, a run going back to before
the All-Star break.

## Why it matters now, and why it is not a rotation question

Los Angeles is not short of starters, and the reporting on Sasaki's postseason use
does not have him competing for one of those jobs. The expectation is that he
moves to the bullpen for October as a long-relief, high-leverage arm: the pitcher
who comes in when a start goes sideways in the third inning, and who can also be
used late.

It is an unusual role for someone with his arsenal, and the argument for it is
practical. A reliever who can throw 99 with a wipeout splitter for two or three
innings is a specific solution to the specific way October games are lost, which
is a starter losing the plot early and a bullpen having to cover six innings with
nobody warm.

## What August has to prove

One start does not settle anything, and the sixth inning against Seattle is the
part worth remembering as much as the first five. The question for the next two
months is not whether Sasaki can look like this, because he has now looked like it
four times running. It is whether the command holds when he is asked to do it on
short notice, out of a bullpen, in a game the Dodgers cannot afford to lose.

The velocity says the arm is there. The rest of the audition runs through
September.

## Sources

- [Roki Sasaki's latest start should excite Dodgers before playoffs](https://sports.yahoo.com/articles/roki-sasaki-latest-start-excite-042915810.html)