Sasaki's Best Stretch Stopped by a Blister vs. Braves

Roki Sasaki walked into Truist Park on Wednesday riding the best stretch of his season — a 2.31 ERA and 1.17 WHIP over his last six starts — and didn’t make it out of the fourth inning. A blister on the middle finger of his right hand ended his night at 66 pitches, four earned runs allowed, and left the Dodgers with a question they didn’t need three weeks from the end of the regular season.

A Promising Matchup That Fell Apart Early

On paper, this was a marquee game: the Dodgers (80-52) against the Braves (77-55), two division leaders squaring off in the National League, with Los Angeles still chasing Milwaukee for the NL’s top spot. Opposing Sasaki was AJ Smith-Shawver, a starter returning from 14 months of Tommy John recovery who hadn’t gone past 4.1 innings in either of his previous two outings. The setup favored Sasaki.

His second half had been a different story from an inconsistent first half — one in which he carried a 4.42 ERA and dealt with mechanical issues dating back to Spring Training. The numbers from his last six starts pointed to a pitcher finally hitting his stride at exactly the right time.

Then the fourth inning rewrote the script. A Drake Baldwin double led to four earned runs — the most Sasaki had allowed in any of his seven second-half starts — and the Dodgers’ medical staff pulled him to the side of the dugout to check his hand. The diagnosis: blister on the right middle finger. It was his shortest outing since the All-Star break.

Why a Blister Is More Serious Than It Sounds

A blister isn’t a torn ligament or a fracture. But for a pitcher whose entire game runs through his grip — a fastball that averages 97.9 mph with 2,276 rpm of spin — the middle finger is the difference between releasing the ball where you want and releasing it wherever you can. Blisters tend to come back, and when they resurface in late August, October becomes part of the conversation.

The Dodgers didn’t announce an immediate plan for their rotation. What we do know: Sasaki held a 3.05 ERA in the second half and had been the most improved arm in Los Angeles’s rotation since the All-Star break. Missing one or two regular-season starts won’t derail the Dodgers’ postseason positioning. A blister that flares up in October would be a different matter entirely.

It also didn’t help that Tuesday night — Atlanta’s 4-3 win, with Ozzie Albies delivering the go-ahead single in the eighth and Raisel Iglesias closing it out — had already snapped a six-game LA winning streak. Tuesday they lost the game. Wednesday they lost the pitcher. Two nights the Dodgers would rather forget.

The Full-Season Picture: Elite Stuff, Uneven Results

The recent hot streak is real and it matters. But reading only the last six starts without the full context would be giving too much credit too fast. Sasaki’s season ERA of 4.42 across 116.0 innings puts him well outside ace territory. His xERA of 4.22 confirms those numbers aren’t bad luck — the quality of contact he’s allowed all year is that of a mid-rotation starter, not a front-line arm.

What is elite is the fastball: 93rd percentile in velocity across all of MLB, with a Whiff% at the 81st percentile — nearly one in three swings against him ends in a miss. The problem is what happens when hitters do make contact: his hard-hit rate allowed sits at the 9th percentile, among the lowest in the league. That’s the central tension of Sasaki’s 2026 — the fastball intimidates, but the full arsenal hasn’t fully convinced.

Wednesday was supposed to be another chance to prove the second half was a real turning point and not just another stretch in a season full of them. The blister cut the answer short.