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Roki Sasaki struggles again before Dodgers rally to tie Angels in exhibition

March 24, 2026

LOS ANGELES — A pair of pitching performances traveled in opposite fast lanes during the middle game of the Freeway Series on Monday night.

Dodgers right-hander Roki Sasaki put the team’s pitching plans in question with another rocky ride, while Angels left-hander Reid Detmers continued to gain momentum for his return as a starter.

The teams played to a 7-7 tie with one more exhibition game left on Tuesday. Both teams open the regular season on Thursday, with the Dodgers at home against the Arizona Diamondbacks and the Angels on the road against the Houston Astros.

The Dodgers waited well over a month before finally revealing their rotation plans on Monday, and Sasaki did little to erase some of the growing concern surrounding his spot.

“We need to see him in compete mode,” Dodgers manager Dave Roberts said before Sasaki took the mound. “Like I’ve talked about, there is a time to work on your mechanics and there’s a time to go out there and compete. Once the game starts, it’s about getting hitters out.”

Sasaki then failed to record an out in the first inning, as the Angels turned a hit batter, a fielder’s choice and three consecutive walks into four runs. Sasaki departed the inning early before returning in the second, per spring training rules.

Jorge Soler and Yoán Moncada each had bases-loaded walks in the first inning for the Angels while Josh Lowe had a two-run single.

Sasaki returned in the second to hit Zach Neto with a pitch, just as he did in the first inning. Mike Trout walked, Nolan Schanuel hit into a force out and Jorge Soler followed with a double play grounder. Sasaki also pitched a scoreless third and departed following a leadoff walk in the fourth.

Sasaki was charged with five runs on six walks and two strikeouts, all while not allowing a hit and recording six outs. He has a 15.58 ERA over four spring training starts and has walked 15 in 8⅔ innings, raising questions about his preparedness for the beginning of the regular season.

“Right now, we’re going to run him out there,” Roberts said. “… We’re going to support him as much as we can, and then give him some runway, and once the season starts, it’s about production. But I don’t think that you can completely just bank on or evaluate spring training or an exhibition game. Yeah, it hasn’t been great. It really hasn’t. And we know that. The standard needs to be better. He knows that, we know that. And then now it’s kind of go time, and see how we can perform when the lights come on.”

Roberts said Sasaki will make his expected start in the fourth game of the regular season next Monday against the Cleveland Guardians.

“Yeah, obviously spring training and regular season are different,” Sasaki said through an interpreter. “But there’s a lot of things that I need to work on before the regular season starts. Spring training is spring training, so I don’t really care about results right now. So I’m just going to focus on coming into the regular season.”

After pitching exclusively out of the bullpen last season, Detmers already has been named to the rotation under first-year manager Kurt Suzuki. He brought a 7.27 ERA (8⅔ innings) into Monday’s start then had his best, although not his longest, outing of the spring when he did not give up a run over three innings.

Two of Detmers’ three strikeouts came against Will Smith, while the other was against Kyle Tucker.

“It was definitely a grind, but I was able to make pitches when I had to,” Detmers said after throwing 37 of his 66 pitches for strikes. “Threw a lot of pitches for those three innings but that’s just tuning up for the season. (My) stuff felt fine.”

As the first Dodgers batter after Detmers was removed from the game, Teoscar Hernandez hit a home run in the fourth inning, his fifth of the spring. Miguel Rojas added a two-run home run in the fourth, with both homers off Angels right-hander Ryan Zeferjahn.

In addition to his two-run single, Lowe had a run-scoring single in the seventh as the Angels took a 7-4 lead.

The Dodgers tied the score at 7-7 in the eighth on a two-run double from Dalton Rushing and an RBI double from Alex Call. Rushing finished with three RBIs.

Nine Dodgers pitchers combined to walk 12 with 10 strikeouts. Seven Angels pitchers had 10 strikeouts with seven walks, while Chase Silseth did not allow a hit over 1⅓ scoreless innings.

More to come on this story.

Orange County Register

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Roki Sasaki struggles again before Dodgers rally to tie Angels in exhibition

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