LOS ANGELES — How many times have we expressed the sentiment this year alone? At one time or another, every fan base in baseball hates its bullpen – and this year it’s Dodger fans’ turn. That development might be karmic payback for their team leaning so hard on relievers in winning the World Series last year.
That said, the solution as this postseason continues has seemed obvious: Lean on the starters to get through the sixth, and into and maybe through the seventh, to lessen the burden (and dependence) on a relief corps that has been largely untrustworthy in 2025. Yoshinobu Yamamoto did just that Wednesday night, giving up two unearned runs and four hits over 6â…” innings only to be followed by another cringeworthy performance in the inning after he left.
But maybe the Dodgers have indeed found a dependable closer, after two months or so of fans covering their eyes every time the bullpen gate swung open. Wednesday night, instead of apprehension in the ninth inning, there was joy for a change.
Roki Sasaki took the mound, after Emmet Sheehan and Anthony Vesia had made another lopsided game closer than it should have been. And to the chants of “Roki … Roki” originating in the upper deck, the 23-year-old rookie from Japan set down the Cincinnati Reds in order – with seven of his 11 pitches triple-digit fastballs that induced two whiffs, three fouls and a check-swing – to close out an 8-4 victory and a Dodgers two-game sweep of the Wild Card Series.
There were hints of such dominance in Sasaki’s two scoreless relief appearances in the final week of the regular season, one in Arizona and the other in Seattle. After all this time as a starting pitcher (and for much of this season an injured one), maybe Sasaki has found his niche, as the sort of flamethrowing reliever that populated bullpens in the good ol’ days.
Are we making too much of this? Or is Sasaki the antidote for the late inning nervousness Dodger fans have felt way too often this season?
The sheer terror this bullpen can produce was on display in Tuesday night’s series opener. Blake Snell had pitched seven brilliant innings, allowing four hits and striking out nine, and left with a 10-2 lead. But by the time Jack Dreyer got the third out in the eighth it was 10-5 and the Reds had the tying run in the on-deck circle.
Blip, or bad omen? It certainly wasn’t an isolated incident, because Wednesday night the Dodgers had an 8-2 lead going into the eighth and Emmet Sheehan going to the mound for his playoff relief debut, and by the time the inning ended Alex Vesia had replaced Sheehan, it was 8-4 and the tying run was again on deck.
As for Dave Roberts’ trust tree? It keeps getting skinnier – but it is autumn, after all. Sasaki has already risen a place of prominence, and maybe he’s the star at the top of the tree.
“You like them all, you trust them all, to various degrees,” Roberts had said before Wednesday night’s game. “And I think in the postseason, you have to go with ultimately who you feel best in that one spot. And so it’s ever-evolving. … It can’t be blind to performance and heartbeat and how guys respond to certain situations.”
Dodgers president of baseball operations Andrew Friedman made this observation before Game 1: “Relievers, kind of like placekickers, are tigthtrope walkers. It’s what they do for a living. They do well, people forget about them. They don’t do well and they’re in the ire of everything. So it’s tough.”
Ah, but Friedman forgot – or ignored – this distinction: When an NFL placekicker misses enough key kicks, he gets waived and his team holds auditions for a replacement. When a Dodger reliever spits up a lead … well, too often over the course of this season it’s been the guy Friedman gave a four-year contract, Tanner Scott.
Then again, the Dodgers won a bidding war for Sasaki – but with a $6.5 million bonus and a one-year, $760,000 contract, limited because of his status in Japan as, technically, an “amateur,” he was by comparison a bargain.
To be fair, Scott (23 saves, 10 blown saves) hasn’t been the target of thunderous boos from the Dodger Stadium faithful as much as might be expected; the displeasure has been muted. So maybe Dodger fans haven’t hated the bullpen as much as they’ve feared it.
And in a season when all of the Dodgers’ regular relievers have had their shaky moments – as did Friedman and GM Brandon Gomes at the trade deadline – maybe they found their solution in experimentation. Sasaki was a starter for the season’s first two months before going on the injured list with a shoulder impingement, and he began working out of the bullpen during his minor league rehabilitation stint.
(I sure hope someone yelled “Eureka!” during this process.)
There are still these questions about whether Shohei Ohtani might be a bullpen resource, at least between starts, and it’s the memory of Ohtani coming out of the bullpen to strike out Mike Trout and lock down the World Baseball Classic title for Japan in 2023 that keeps that thought alive.
“I don’t see that happening,” Roberts said before the game. Keep in mind that under MLB’s Ohtani rule, if he comes into the game as a relief pitcher but then is removed, he leaves the game as a hitter, too.
Roberts said before the game he would “put this game on Yoshinobu,” and Yamamoto did his part. He gave up two unearned runs in the first, retired the next 13 in a row, got into and out of trouble in the sixth by striking out Sal Stewart and Elly De La Cruz with the bases loaded, and almost made it through the seventh, exiting with two out and two on and a 7-2 lead.
The drama started in the eighth. It ended with Sasaki methodically putting down the Reds in the ninth.
So, Roberts was asked, is the youngster now the closer?
“I trust him, and he’s going to be pitching in leverage,” he said. “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.”
This could be a lot of fun. Anyone want to volunteer an entrance song?
