Dodgers 7, Tigers 3: Roki struggles with control again, but donging bats keep the 162-0 dream alive

Chad Moriyama 03/29/2025 Game Recaps 2 Comments

After a wild couple of days of celebration for the 2024 World Series team, this felt like more of a normal regular season game for the Dodgers. Unfortunately, it was anything but for Roki Sasaki, who struggled with his control again. Thankfully, the pen picked him up and the bats hit a trio of homers for a 7-3 victory for a 5-0 start in a sweep of the Tigers.

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After struggling with his command during his debut in the Japan Series, the same issue continued to plague Sasaki today.

He alternated singles and outs for the first four batters, putting him on the verge of getting through the inning, but then issued a walk to load the bases, got unlucky on a Manuel Margot dribbler for a single to plate a run, and then walked Trey Sweeney for another run before getting out of it.

Roki faced four full-counts in the inning, throwing 41 pitches in the frame, exiting down 2-0.

On the other side was Reese Olson, who started with a pair of outs, but then Freddie Freeman boomed a ball half-way up the right-field pavilion to cut the deficit to 2-1.

Roki came back out for the 2nd inning, but on his way to getting two outs he issued another pair of walks and uncorked a wild pitch. That put him at 61 pitches and was enough for Dave Roberts: 1.2 IP, 3 H, 2 R, 4 BB, 2 K, 61 Pitches.

Jack Dreyer was summoned out of the pen, getting the final out and closing the book on Roki.

Despite that struggle, the offense got them right back in the game in their half of the 2nd, as Andy Pages singled and Michael Conforto doubled off the bag, and Pages scored after running through Dino Ebel‘s stop sign. 2-2.

Things remained knotted for awhile as Dreyer got a clean 3rd, Ben Casparius entered for a clean 4th, and Anthony Banda got a pair of strikeouts in a clean 5th.

Unfortunately, Olson had also been keeping the bats quiet, but that changed in the 5th. A Conforto lead-off walk was advanced to third by a couple of groundouts, and Shohei Ohtani was given an intentional walk, but Teoscar Hernandez made that hurt with a two-run double to left for a 4-2 lead that knocked Olson out of the game.

Will Smith added on in the 6th, hitting his first homer of the year to put them up 5-2.

Now with a lead, Luis Garcia entered in the 6th and cruised, but the 7th was a different story. He gave up a triple to Jake Rogers that Teoscar basically caught but lost at the wall, and that was later cashed in when Garcia did his best Gerrit Cole impersonation for an infield single that made it 5-3. Bad look. Fortunately, he did get out of it with a double play.

Luckily, the Dodgers made sure it didn’t cost them much, as Tommy Edman continued his power hitting by leading off the 7th with his third dong of the season to make it 6-3.

After Ohtani walked, he then stole second and came home on a Freddie double to push the lead to 7-3.

To close things out was Kirby Yates in a dominant 8th where he struck out the side on 13 pitches, and Blake Treinen came out for the 9th, allowing just a single while striking out two.

Impressive work for the pen, covering 7.1 innings and the only run they gave up being the last man on the staff.

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5-0 … the dream is alive, folks.

Jack Flaherty finally got his ring. Well deserved.

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