SAN DIEGO -- The Dodgers held a lead for a mere half-inning, but after one good swing from Ty France off Roki Sasaki in the bottom of the second, Friday night's game was out of their hands.
It wasn't so much France's home run that sank the Dodgers as they fell to the Padres, 7-1. It was the two walks that preceded it, and the five overall free passes issued by Sasaki, that led to their undoing in the series opener at Petco Park.
The three runs in the second inning represented the only damage Sasaki allowed across four-plus innings, marking the first time since April 12 -- his third start of the season -- that he did not record an out beyond the fourth. He struck out two, allowed three hits and matched his career high by issuing five walks for the third time as a big leaguer.
"Today’s game, I really struggled to throw strikes," Sasaki said through interpreter Kensuke Okubo. "There’s a lot of things I need to work on, and I need to go over that."
Sasaki wasn't the only member of the Dodgers to falter under the bright lights of the Los Angeles-San Diego rivalry. His offense struggled to solve old friend Walker Buehler, who gave up a solo homer to Mookie Betts in the top of the second but otherwise limited the damage across 5 1/3 innings.
In Sasaki's first career appearance against the Padres, he showed some of the wildness that was prevalent early on this season. He walked three of the first five batters he faced. In the first inning, Samad Taylor was erased on a double play. But in the second, Manny Machado and Gavin Sheets were aboard when France went yard.
Sasaki went ahead 0-2 on France and went below the zone with his slider. France went down and got it, driving the ball into the seats in left field. It may have been a piece of good hitting, but the damage could have been lesser had Sasaki not given up the free passes.
From that point on, Sasaki did not allow another run, although his pitch count rose quickly after he navigated through traffic in the fourth and fifth innings. He escaped a bases-loaded jam in the fourth, and he left two runners on with nobody out in the fifth, with Jack Dreyer stranding both.
Sasaki attributed his lapse in command to mechanical issues with his lower half. The 24-year-old right-hander has shown a tendency to get caught up in his mechanics in the past, sometimes at the expense of his mentality when it comes to attacking hitters.
"Sometimes, certain pitchers, if they’re out of whack a little bit, they can’t really do what they’re accustomed to doing or wanting to do. So I think Roki is a little bit like that," manager Dave Roberts said. "But at the end of the day, even if you don’t feel great, you still gotta go out there and make pitches and not walk guys. That’s just the bottom line. That’s the big leagues.”
The Dodgers were thrilled by the strides Sasaki took from the beginning of May through his first start of June, when he posted a 2.55 ERA (10 earned runs in 35 1/3 innings) and much more closely resembled the pitcher he was in his dominant Nippon Professional Baseball days. But he's taken a step back, recording an 8.36 ERA (13 earned runs in 14 innings) in his past three starts.
Sasaki's performance and his command tend to go hand in hand. He's walked nine batters in his past three starts. In his dominant six-start stretch before that, he issued eight total walks.
"I’m not going to have it every time out, so that’s something I have to improve. And also the gameplan," Sasaki said. "I was able to execute some of the pitches, but some of the pitches I couldn’t, so that’s something I have to go through before next start."
For the Dodgers, one of the most important things is that they know Sasaki can perform in the Major Leagues. His strong stretch in May and early June showed that. From here, it's a matter of helping him get back to what he was doing well back then.
"I know that there's confidence in there," Roberts said. "But when you feel good and you don't feel good mechanically and can't execute pitches, yeah, then the results are walks, and you know, [0-2] homers, things like that. But yeah, I do think that we can kind of tackle the mechanic things that he's probably looking for right now."