When the Los Angeles Dodgers won the Roki Sasaki sweepstakes last offseason and enlisted the services of the coveted Japanese phenom, everyone expected him to be part of a stacked starting rotation that would help carry the defending World Series champions to a second consecutive title.
However, fate had other plans.
Sasaki's Major League debut campaign did not go as expected, with his regular season being limited to just 36 1/3 innings over 10 games (eight starts) as he missed significant time due to right shoulder impingement. The appearances he did make were hardly the superstar-caliber starts that were expected of him, as he pitched to a 4.