Bullpen Auditions by Sasaki and Kershaw Offer Dodgers a Rare Bit of Relief

The Dodgers have muddled their way through September, winning just often enough to maintain a narrow lead over the Padres. It’s no mystery why the defending champions needed until Thursday to secure the NL West title or, for the first time since the new playoff structure was implemented, failed to secure a first-round bye. While their rotation has been stellar lately, their bullpen has been absolutely brutal. On Wednesday night at Chase Field, even as they flirted with losing in walk-off fashion for the second night in a row and the fifth time this month, they uncovered perhaps their best hope for a deep October run, as both Roki Sasaki and Clayton Kershaw turned in clean innings in their first relief appearances of the season. While there are some caveats to those performances — neither pitcher was facing Murderer’s Row, both allowed hard contact, and Sasaki benefited from a blown call on strike three — both appearances were eye-opening and offered cause for optimism.

Just the night before the two auditions, the Dodgers squandered Shohei Ohtani‘s season-high six scoreless innings and a 4-0 lead against the Diamondbacks when Jack Dreyer, Edgardo Henriquez, Alex Vesia, and Tanner Scott combined to allow five runs over the final three innings. Scott started the ninth by hitting Ildemaro Vargas, then walking Tim Tawa; two batters later, the former scored the tying run on Jorge Barrosa‘s sacrifice fly and then the latter came home with the winning run on Geraldo Perdomo‘s single. It was the second time in three days the Dodgers had wasted a scoreless start of six innings or more; Emmet Sheehan’s seven innings of one-hit shutout work against the Giants on Sunday went for naught when Blake Treinen allowed three runs while retiring just two of seven hitters in the eighth. That loss made Treinen the first pitcher since at least 1912 to wear five of his team’s losses in a row, according to MLB.com’s Mike Petriello.

On Wednesday, Blake Snell overcame a labor-intensive first inning to hold the Diamondbacks to one run and five hits over six frames. He departed with a 3-1 lead — and plenty of shellshocked Dodgers fans braced for yet another bullpen meltdown. This time the script was different, as manager Dave Roberts called upon the 23-year-old Sasaki, who made eight appearances, all starts, for the Dodgers before landing on the injured list due to a shoulder impingement on May 13. Working with only his four-seamer and splitter, and exuding a mound presence largely absent from his initial stint with the Dodgers, he induced James McCann to ground out, then struck out both Tawa and Vargas on 99-mph four-seamers, the former looking at a low-and-inside (perhaps too inside) pitch, the latter via a foul tip:

“Wow! What do we have here?” exclaimed SportsNet LA’s play-by-play announcer Joe Davis after the strikeout of Vargas.

“One hundred, with a nasty split?” marveled Snell afterwards. “OK, Roki.”

“He looks like a different person,” said Roberts. “I think that we’ve simplified things as far as the bullpen. It’s an inning or two. I think there’s just a lot more confidence and conviction. Obviously, the stuff is up from where it was earlier this year.”

The Dodgers extended their lead to 4-1 in the top of the seventh, but Vesia walked a batter and yielded two hits, including an RBI double by Corbin Carroll; the other two baserunners he bequeathed scored after Henriquez replaced him. With the game still tied 4-4 in the ninth, Kershaw — who hadn’t made a regular-season relief appearance since September 29, 2019 — retired both Vargas and Alek Thomas on routine grounders, then got Ketel Marte on a fly ball to right center field, where Tommy Edman made a great diving catch:

After Treinen retired McCann on a bases-loaded fly ball to end the 10th, Edman played the hero on the offensive side by driving in Freddie Freeman with the go-ahead run in the 11th. Lefty Justin Wrobleski sandwiched strikeouts of Tawa and Thomas around a groundout by Vargas to preserve the victory, which cut the Dodgers’ magic number to win the NL West to one; with an 8-0 romp on Thursday afternoon, the Dodgers claimed their 12th division title in 13 seasons.

Had the Dodgers lost on Wednesday, it would have been the 11th time this season — and fifth time this month — that they did so after a starter turned in six innings while allowing one run or less. Only the Giants (15), Reds (12), Rays (11), and Braves (10) have squandered as many or more such starts. In their four September losses following these gems, the other two of which were by Yoshinobu Yamamoto on September 6 versus the Orioles (when he came within one out of a no-hitter) and September 12 against the Giants, the bullpen allowed 15 runs (14 earned).

For as familiar as playoff berths are to the Dodgers, this one has a different shape, and not just because they’ll be playing a Wild Card Series. In both 2023 and ’24, the Dodgers secured byes but limped into October with flimsy rotations due to an abundance of poorly timed injuries. Their 100-win 2023 squad was bounced by the 84-win Diamondbacks after an ailing Kershaw, Lance Lynn, and rookie Bobby Miller were collectively rocked for 13 runs in 4 2/3 innings. Last year’s 98-win team won a championship despite resorting to bullpen games four times to augment a rickety three-man rotation of Yamamoto, Jack Flaherty, and Walker Buehler. While Snell (a free agent newcomer) and Tyler Glasnow (who missed last year’s championship run due to tendinitis in his elbow) were sidelined for substantial parts of this season due to shoulder inflammation, and Ohtani has been kept on a short leash in his first season back on the mound following UCL reconstruction, the rotation has jelled at just the right time. Between that trio, Yamamoto, Kershaw, and Sheehan, their starters have pitched brilliantly over the past two months, in marked contrast to the bullpen:

In addition to spending big on Snell (five years, $182 million) and landing the highly-coveted Sasaki, the Dodgers splurged on their bullpen this past winter, retaining Treinen with a two-year, $22 million deal and adding Scott (four years, $72 million), as well as righties Kirby Yates (one year, $13 million) and Luis García (one year, $1.5 million). None has pitched well:

García was released on July 4 and now toils for the Angels. Each of the others has made at least one trip to the injured list, with Treinen spending 99 days there from mid-April to late July due to a low-grade forearm sprain, Scott missing 31 days from late July to late August due to elbow inflammation, and Yates now six days into his second IL stint for a right hamstring strain; he missed 20 days during his first one in May and June, as well as 25 days from late July to late August due to lower back pain.

Meanwhile, the team has lost Evan Phillips for the season due to Tommy John surgery, and along with Yates is now without both Michael Kopech and Brock Stewart. Kopech, who pitched brilliantly after being acquired from the White Sox ahead of last year’s trade deadline, missed the first 2 1/2 months of the season due to a shoulder impingement and on September 19 hit the IL for the second time due to right knee inflammation. The first stint cost him nine weeks, and the Dodgers have yet to offer a timeline for this one. “He’s going through some things physically and certainly is pitchable, and those are his words,” said Roberts. “But it’s just not the Kopech, the standard that he is as a pitcher.” Stewart, acquired ahead of this year’s deadline, has been on the IL since August 12 due to shoulder inflammation. After receiving two cortisone shots, he’s expected to be activated before the end of the regular season.

That litany does shed light on the bullpen’s recent struggles. Given that the team has generally worked with a six-man rotation since Snell’s August 2 return but won’t need more than four starters in October, it makes sense to see if the others — including Sasaki, who made five starts and two relief appearances for Triple-A Oklahoma City on his rehab assignment — can help cover the later innings.

Last week, ahead of Kershaw announcing his retirement and making his final regular season home start, Roberts made clear that the 37-year-old future Hall of Famer — who has pitched to a 3.52 ERA and 3.68 FIP in 107.1 innings — would not be among his postseason starters. “I feel that there’s a place for him on our postseason roster,” said the manager. “I don’t know what role, but I think that the bottom line is, I trust him. And so, for me, the postseason is about players you trust.”

That trust extends to the 25-year-old Sheehan, who returned to the majors on June 18, 13 months after Tommy John surgery, has pitched brilliantly. Not only has he posted a 2.86 ERA and 3.02 FIP in 72.1 innings overall, but he’s allowed just four runs in his past 31.1 innings (with a 36.5% strikeout rate) since August 25. “He’s gonna impact us in the postseason in some capacity,” said Roberts after Sheehan’s scoreless 10-strikeout gem against the Giants. The immediate plan is for him to start against the Mariners on Friday and be available out of the bullpen during the Wild Card series. Sheehan has three relief appearances this season, all of four innings or longer; two followed short Ohtani outings as the two-way superstar rebuilt his pitch count, and the third was a 5 2/3-inning, one-run effort against the Phillies on September 15 after opener Anthony Banda retired just one of the three hitters he faced.

Those plans kept Sheehan from joining Sasaki and Kershaw in Wednesday’s mix. Both mustered greater velocity than usual in their brief outings. Sasaki averaged 96 mph with his four-seamer as a starter, though he was down below 95 in his last two turns. That velocity ticked up to an average of 99.2 mph on Wednesday, with six of his seven fastballs in the 99.0–99.8 mph range and the seventh, which was just 98.3 mph, netting a swinging strike (strike two to Tawa); he got called strikes on four others, including the gift strike three call from home plate umpire Marvin Hudson, which I’ve highlighted below, plus the foul tip against Vargas:

Four of the six splitters Sasaki threw were outside the zone; of the other two, one turned into McCann’s 98.1-mph grounder and the other was strike two (swinging) against Vargas.

Here’s the Statcast comparison between his pitch movement on Wednesday relative to his pre-injury appearances:

During his rehab assignment, after four mostly disappointing starts for Oklahoma City, Sasaki met with Rob Hill, the Dodgers’ director of pitching, at the team’s spring training facility in Glendale, Arizona. Accompanied by translators, Hill and Sasaki reviewed video and “found discrepancies between things Sasaki ‘still almost thought he was doing’ in his delivery, but weren’t translating in how he actually threw the ball,” as Hill told the Los Angeles Times‘ Jack Harris. Hill helped Sasaki adjust his shoulder movement and lower half sequence, which helped boost the pitcher’s velocity. His fastball shape remains problematic, but his splitter now looks more like his four-seamer coming out of his hand, and gets more movement in both planes. Apparently Sasaki has also been working on a new cutter to replace his slider, which had been underwhelming and which had contributed to his shoulder discomfort. He didn’t unveil the new pitch on Wednesday, but having passed his audition, it seems clear he’ll get his chance soon enough.

As for Kershaw, 13 of the 15 pitches he threw were either sliders or four-seamers, but he did toss in one curve and one splitter, a pitch he’s developed but rarely called upon in recent years. He gained a bit of velocity and extra ride on the four-seamer while replicating the velocity of his two signature breaking balls, albeit with slightly different movement that was still well within the range of his 2025 body of work:

Two of the three balls the Diamondbacks hit against Kershaw were hit hard; the Vargas grounder was a scorching 105.9 mph, the Marte fly 95.5. He did avoid the barrel, consistent with his seasonal rate of 4.3%, which puts him in the 95th percentile; his overall hard-hit rate of 42.9% ranks in just the 28th percentile, however. If the results weren’t quite as head-turning as Sasaki’s outing, it was at least reassuring that he was able to forgo his famously methodical pregame routine and still get outs. “It’s an adrenaline rush for sure,” he said afterwards. “Relieving is just a different animal altogether. You’ve got to figure out how to maintain your heartbeat and get going, but it’s a lot of fun — and it’s fun to have success out there.”

For all of this excitement, one appearance is still just one appearance, and it’s not as though Sasaki or Kershaw faced the top of the Mets or Phillies’ lineups; Marte has a 143 wRC+ and McCann 109 (in a small sample), but the other batters in question had an 82 wRC+ or below. Tougher assignments will be necessary if the Dodgers are to retain their hopes of repeating as champions, but for one night, the two appearances kept the doom and gloom regarding their bullpen at bay.