Dodgers Territory - Sasaki Takes the Mound, Tokyo Series Sweep Reactions

Episode Date: March 19, 2025

The Dodgers' bats came alive, powering them to a 6-3 win over the Cubs to complete the Tokyo Series sweep.(1:17) DT hosts Alanna Rizzo and Clint Pasillas break down Roki Sasaki’s MLB debut—the flashes of brilliance, the growing pains, and what’s next.(3:21) The Dodgers’ bullpen delivered another strong outing, building momentum early in the season.(5:52) Shohei Ohtani gave the Tokyo crowd a moment to remember—but did that ball really leave the park?(9:37) Tommy Edman etched his name in history with the first home run of 2025. Our hosts discuss why "Tommy Tanks" is such a crucial part of this roster.Go to SpotandTango.com/foul and use code foul to get 50% off your first order.(16:45) Two games in, two wins—how much confidence should we have after this series sweep?Plus, if you ever visit Shohei Ohtani’s hometown, you might just get to shake his hand!Subscribe to DT on YouTube! DT is LIVE on Mondays & Thursdays at 12p PT/3p ET all year long!See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

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Hello, everybody. And good morning. Welcome to another episode of Dodgers territory. That is sleepy-eyed, Clint Paseas. I am not as tired, Alana Rizzo on the East Coast, talking about your Los Angeles Dodgers. Clint, they did it. They went out to Tokyo, had a tremendous time.

Played the Cubs in two games that mattered. And they are coming home for the domestic opener after the L.A. Angel series up to nothing to start the season. Yeah, we had a little bit of everything in this game. We got some Shohei Otani, given the fans what they want, which is a bomb. Roki Sasaki, okay, limits the damage in his debut. But most importantly, the Dodgers take both games, like you say, against those Cubs. And they do so without the services of Mukie Betts and Freddie Freeman, everything you could ask for

as a Dodger fan in this series. Yeah, 162 and O, here we come. trying to run this back and doing it, of course, without Moogie Betts and Freddie Freeman, hopefully they'll both be ready for the domestic opener on the 27th against the Tigers. Roki Sasaki making his major league baseball debut in his home country.

As you mentioned, Clint limited the damage. I was a little concerned about how erratic it seemed to be. I mean, he threw, you know, he did okay. He threw 56 pitches, but only 25 of those Clint were for strikes. So a little, a little more than half. or a little less than half, rather, were for strikes. A lot of balls outside of the zone. I don't want to be Will Smith because you have no idea where his pitches are going.

But what is your assessment of the first real outing that counts for Roki Sasaki in American baseball? I mean, all things considered, he gets through three innings, allows just the one run, walks in the one run there. In the third avoids damage there, further damage getting that strikeout as well. third with what looked like a slider. I think they called it a slider. But again, okay, not good, not great. Five walks in there is a little less than ideal. We knew there would be some work in progress with Roki Sasaki. There would be some growing pains in there. I'm sure the nerves were pretty, you know, on edge there making his debut, MLB debut back in Japan. But he gave the Dodgers what they needed. I think you and I were talking about this on Monday. Just

give them three, give them four. You got enough bullpen arms. You got enough guys that are kind of stretched out to just survive a two-game series before you enjoy a flight back home. You enjoy your beds. You play three meaningless games and the season starts back up again. So I liked what I saw. And there are, there's some good, good room for improvement for Sasaki. Yeah, he walks in a run there, but leaves the bases loaded on a huge K to end the third.

Justin Yama saying good luck to other teams. You have to stop the world just to stop the feeling. I love that, Justin. Everybody welcome. Great to have you guys with us. Make sure you like and subscribe. Rate us five stars. Tell your friends.

Tell your neighbors. We're so happy that you're with us. So Justin Steele picks up the L for the Chicago Cubs. And Landon Nack and all of his show flow picks up the win for the Los Angeles Dodgers. Again, another impressive outing by this Dodgers bullpen, Clint. Yeah, I mean, another one. Good, not great early on.

Luis Garcia making his Dodgers debut. The veteran allows the one, the run there. We see on the screen, the run with the two hits, nothing major. Jack Dreyer, kind of, you know, I'd blame him for his one earned run. I'm surprised it's an earned run. It felt like an error to me, considering a hit off of his glove. So he could have escaped that inning clean. But otherwise, the guys you want being clean were clean.

Vessia, a little bit of a tightrope there on the ninth. Kirby Yates, clean in his debut. and you didn't have to go back to back with guys. You know, we didn't need to see Blake Trining back out there. You didn't need to see Tanner Scott going for a second save. Again, everything you want out of the city. Yeah, we saw guys like, Louise Garcia and I were like, who the hell is this guy?

Like, and I know, I know that he's a, you know, he's a veteran reliever or whatever. But, I mean, that's the beauty of this Dodgers team is that you don't have to blow out your big arms and back-to-back games when you have so many complimentary pieces. This is a funny description to Philip Fountain, joining the program friend of the program rokey was shaky and nasty at the same time i love that because you don't necessarily have to have your best stuff you can have nasty nasty stuff even if it's not

your best day on the hill that's one of the better descriptions i've ever seen about a guy that has you know a hundred you know 100.5 miles an hour but doesn't necessarily have the location the pinpoint location we're looking for got yeah he's got the velo we know the splitter is nasty it just doesn't always know where everything is going and again this is part of of what the Dodgers signed up for and why he came to LA. He's going to keep refining his game. We'll probably take some real assessment after five or eight starts before we really, really know who Roki Sasaki is going to be to open his career.

Right now, they're at that point where go out there, throw with what got you here, throw with what made you such a desired commodity in free agency. I guess we can call it free agency. And if they need to implement some changes, they will. Otherwise, you know, 100 miles an hour still plays up whether the fastball is straight or not, 100 miles an hour. Still pretty dang good fastball.

Yeah, you've got to know where it's going, though. So Will Smith is like, what the heck? How are we doing this back here? But no, it was a good offensive day, too, again, in the absence of bets and Freeman. So it's only going to get better in terms of the Dodgers offense. Be honest. Did you think Shohei actually went yard? Yeah.

Yeah. I mean, Joe gave us a little bit of a ride. on his call for sure. Let's play the tape here in that Otani bomb because it gave us a little bit of everything to pomp the circumstance, the excitement of an Otani at bat in Japan. And it sounded gone. It sounded tank. Ninety-nine. You see him kind of worrying maybe. He didn't know though. Maybe not. Maybe not. And then I was like, that was hit pretty dang hard to be hitting off the wall. But it hits off of fans hands. Thankfully, the call was a home run. So, you know, they don't overturn that To overturn it right.

And listen, to me right there, that's, that's past the line. That's getting over the line. That's hitting somebody just about in the waist or in their junk if it gets over the wall. So it's a homer to me. That's a show homer. That's a show, Hey, Bomb. His first of the 2025 season. What was not questionable was Kike's.

Good Lord. He hit that thing. I was like, oh, my. Oh, my, Kike. Welcome to 2025. I mean, that was in no doubt or almost on the same pitch that he felled off before. but man, that was a tank. Yeah, that's a Kikebom.

He ran into that one. Good way to get off the Schneide for 2025. A fan favorite out there everywhere, Mr. International, Kikei Hernandez, and unloads two-run bomb. I think it was a two-run. Maybe it was a solo shot. No, two-run bomb,

because there's a guy on base, and usually that means two runs. Yeah, that was a multiple run, home run. What do you mean, get off the Schneid? It's the second game of 2020. Still Ofer. You're going to feel an Ofer. You go up, you see on the scoreboard,

Ofer, you see zero, zero, zero. That's the most important thing. I want to go back to Rokey for a second because I did see a comment here. Seeler 9 in our chats is the overreaction to Saki all season long are going to be all time, 23 years old, never pitching M&B before. Going to take a while to adjust all the way. And I think that's going to be a big thing for all of us. Just give him some grace.

It's going to take a little. little bit of time. If this is, I don't know about a bad Roki outing, you take this outing. You take this outing any day of the week when we're talking about Roki Sasaki. You also take the Dodgers being scrappy with the bats here. We see how they, I don't know how it got shrunk there, but we'll fix that for everybody. Doing a little bit of everything to get on the board. Yeah, a little bit of What I like too is that Max Muncie on, speaking of Max Muncie there on second base with Hernandez up at the plate. Max Muncie on foul territory yesterday told the boys that they, the team themselves said to Roki Sasaki, listen, there is no pressure on you, man. We got this.

We got your back. We have you defensively playing behind you. We have you with the bat. So that's something, that's a veteran move right there when a team, whoever it was that initiated the conversation said, listen, you don't have to go out there and be the man. We understand the pressure. You're 23 years old. You're new to this, you know, the culture and everything. And I get that he was pitching in Japan, but he's pitching for an American team.

And he's trying to show out for his team, right? You're trying to show out why everyone in their mother wanted Roki Sasaki on their roster. And he showed that. But I love Max and the veteran move there of saying, listen, you got 25 other guys. And really, they brought 31 and the coaching staff that is all behind you. We got this. Absolutely. That's what this team does.

A bunch of veterans going to welcome everybody in. just try to put people in the best position to succeed and defense can help them out, offense can help them out. And Rokey, just go out there, do your thing. And how about this?

Before we throw to our friends at Spot and Tango, did you have on your Dodger 2025 bingo card? This guy with the first homer of the season, that's right. Thomas Tanks going yard right here. I didn't have him as the first home run, but honestly, I'm not surprised. This guy's just a ball player, right? We talked about it yesterday. I mean, you look at

him in stature and you may not think that he has the power that he has. But man, I tell you what, he took that ball and he just smacked it over that left field wall, given the Dodgers a three to nothing lead there in the top of the third against Justin Steele, who by the way, God bless him, but he looks like he just out of bed. He looks so shell-shocked for Justin Steele. And I want him to be healthy. I want him to be good. He's good for the game. And obviously, the Cubs desperately need him. But Tommy tanks, he's just a ball player, right? You talk about, you know, he's baseballish. He's hitterish. He has the power. He can do all of the things.

He's a guy that's on this team. He's a guy that's straight up a dude. He's a dude. He's a dude for five more years. I think dude wipe should sponsor the show. But right now, let's get to Spot and Tango. Let's do it. T fam, I hope you have as much confidence as Penelope right now, who is an avid spot and tango fan, okay?

And she uses the code foul crats because this is a personalized dog food subscription service that prevents you, of course, from going to the store to pick up the food. And she just gets the highest quality on kibble. That is what they're known for. And I know you love the quiz part of it, too. It's a super quick quiz, but it lets you give them the information and they tailor it to what is needed based on their age, size, activity level, all things that are custom for each and every one of your dogs.

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I'm Brian. I work at United Healthcare. So, Brian, why do you care? I care because I don't want to leave anybody behind. I oversee one of the biggest resource center in your... not a healthcare. I see people walked in in my office every day, just like my parents. They have no idea about the health care. I feel like they are my uncles, aunties. I treat people like family. I'm Brian, and I'm committed to care. That's pretty good. I love it. And honestly, my dog Bentley

loves Spot and Tango. We appreciate Spot and Tango for being a friend of the program here. She loves it. I give her, I'm allowed to give her four scoops a day. day. I give her two scoops a day in addition to some other stuff and she loves it. So spot and tango is good stuff. It is uncibble, if you will. Does Doobie like it too, Clint? Doobie. Doobie is a massive fan. He'll actually listen to me more when I have the, the uncibble there. We're on the cod and salmon because it changes up their usual. We've got two dogs here. So it changes up the usual meat palette for them. I want my dog to feel special. And he definitely does with Spot and Tango. That stuff is.

That's some good stuff. It is good stuff. All right. Use the links, guys. Yeah, I appreciate that. So Dodgers take the early lead in the second inning. Smith walked, Muncie Devil, pass ball, Kekasek, why. We talked about that.

I think this is a good indication, too, of kind of just trying to scrap together runs, right? I mean, yesterday they didn't really get things going until the fifth inning after they got Shoda Imanaga out of the game. So they took advantage of the Cubs bullpen. Today it was kind of, you know, a back and forth situation there where they were able to, you don't have to necessarily rely on the home run. run, although they got three, but just kind of found a way to win. And this is what you're going to have to do.

It doesn't matter how you do it, as long as you get the W at the end of the day. Yeah, everybody's stepping up. And again, like we already said at the top of the show, without the services of Mukhi Betts, without the services of Freddie Freeman, finding a way to scrap together some runs, putting up six in this game and a little bit of everybody. Also, Teasca Hernandez, not a factor in this game. Of course, big factor in game one. But everybody doing something, Kike Hernandez, with the bamba there.

Tommy Edmund in that two hole doing good stuff. Showe O'Hawah Tani doing really, really good stuff with the bat. And Will Smith, let's shout out Will Smith for a second. Because I do want to give some love for his hot start because we do see a 1.528. Sorry, numbers are hard sometimes. But a 1500 OPS as Smitty is putting together a hell of a start to his season and quieting up some of the haters or the question mark people like myself or like, hey, we're worried about that ankle. Are you feeling good? is everything right at home, all that kind of stuff.

But Smitty, both of these games, really, really nice stuff here. And if he's able to be back to, you know, what we've seen in the past when he's right, especially early season, Will Smith, that is huge for this team because just a couple years ago, this was a guy who was hitting cleanup. So if he's hitting somewhere five or six in this order, having him, I mean, he's not going to post the 1,500 OPS for the rest of the year, but to have him right, have him feeling good, have him dancing on second base. The Dodgers are going to be in a very, very good spot.

It's funny because I love him, but he's not the most flamboyant human in the world. So when you see him having to do that thing with the thing, he just looks like so uncomfortable, right? You know who else I want to give a little bit of props to Clint is Michael Conforto because again, I think the Dodgers signed Michael Conforto because they wanted to lengthen the lineup, right? We talked so much last season about how the bottom part of the order just wasn't producing and you're relying way too heavily on one through five to get the offense going.

Michael Conforto today, you know, one for three. I'm batting 286. I put no stock in the first two games in terms of numbers and statistics. But I like the fact that he is able to lengthen that lineup and give you a quality at bat from the left side. Hey, you know, some people might forget the name Michael Conforto. He was a very, very good player when he was younger with the New York Mets before injuries kind of derailed his career. had an okay season with the Giants last year, but he's just the right type of player to come here to the Dodgers and be a part of this, you know, the Dodger lab that we had a chance to see out there at Camelback Ranch, but also things that this front office able to do, the coaching staff, the hitting coaches and all that, things they are able to identify and get players back on track. Conforto could be the next Jason Hayward type of dude or Teosker. I don't throw Teasker in that.

I'm going to put him more in the Jason Hayward category rather than the Teosca Hernandez category, because Teo was good. He was still pretty good in Seattle. He's been good all of his career. Conforto has fallen on hard time. So like you're saying, like we're saying, if we're looking at somebody that's a little bit lower in the lineup, somebody that can help this lineup, you know, lengthen the lineup out. Yeah, but I think you're forgetting one key, one key factor.

It's like when you get to the Dodgers, you just reinvent yourself, right? I think a lot of these times, you know, when you go on, when you're on a lot of, other teams, you have so much pressure because they don't have the depth that the Dodgers do. And it's like Michael Conforto knows that he certainly, if you look at that line, if he certainly doesn't have to be the man. So he can be the guy that is, you know, just he could be himself is what I'm trying to say. So sometimes when you come to the Dodgers, you just kind of like have this ability to kind of like reinvent yourself.

And the Dodgers seem to find success in guys that, you know, haven't had it in the past. Let's talk about this really quick. By the way, happy 37th birthday to the goat, Clayton Kershot. Today is his birthday. I will never forget Clayton's birthday because it's also my grandmother's birthday. She has passed, but I will never forget that. So let me say, happy birthday to Clayton, but there was a couple of roster moves, Clint, before the game today. The Dodgers recalled Matt Sauer.

They placed Kersh on the 60-day I-L, not a shock there coming off of the surgeries. And they optioned Justin Robleski. Yeah. No, these are nothing burger moves. We knew Kirsch was going on the 60 day. At some point in time, Rebleski did not get into game one. Should be somebody who's at AAA to open the season so he can stay lengthened out and stay built up to be a starter. And Sauer, you know, it was either going to be Matt Sauer or Jack Dreyer or Luis Garcia in today's game.

They went with Garcia and Dave went with Garcia and Dave went with, drier in this game, but he'll be around for a little bit. And then, you know, once other guys get healthy, Evan Phillips gets healthy, be a non-factor. But still, some roster moves. Dodgers staying busy early on in 2025 here. So I'll ask you this. You feeling pretty confident?

No, let me ask you. You feeling pretty confident to up to O? We haven't even seen Blake Snell and Tyler Glaznow, Oppenheimer yet. I mean, you have to feel confident taking two, two games abroad. seeing some of those numbers you know seeing some of these stats are thrown back up on the screen there otani off to a nice start the smitty off to a nice start edmund solid in there conformo and and the pitching we know the pitching is going to be an absolute strength for this team moving forward

so i i feel really really good what i'll ask you what did we learn from this series a series that we can kind of call meaningless but at the same time the games count oh i don't think it's meaningless at all. I think it's a, you know, it's a good statement piece if you want to look at it that way. This, to me, shows that the Dodgers don't have that proverbial hangover, that the Dodgers aren't looking forward to, you know, just the domestic stuff in the, in the, uh, 20205 season. This is a team that wants to dominate. This is a team that isn't, uh, isn't ready to settle. I mean, Will Smith even told us when we're talking to him at Camelback Ranch that he's still hungry. We talked about these guys having the, having the World Series championship and some young

blood, but even the guys that won last year that were on this team, you know, what's better than winning once? Winning twice, you know, and they want to continue this dominance and this legacy. And even Miguel Rojas told us that, listen, he wanted to be a part at 36 years old. He wanted to be a part of what he believes to be one of the best teams ever assembled in Major League Baseball. And this is a sport that's been around a really long time. So that's one thing I take away from it. I think it's amazing just to once again illustrate the depth that the Dodgers had. If you told me that we were going to go into this series against a Cubs team with Shoda Imanaga and Justin Steele without bets and Freeman, I would have been, I would have been happy with the split coming out of

that and they won both games. So it shows me the versatility again, that proverbial V we talk about with this team off the top. That's what it shows me. It shows me that Yamamoto and Roki Sasaki are huge pieces. Still some work to be done, of course. But it shows me what I, we are what we thought we were, you know? That's, that's what, that's what it shows me. And still an incomplete team. Again, like I was just saying, you're, you're still missing some pieces. The bullpen is, is incomplete at the moment. We haven't seen the rest of the starting rotation, but this is a team that is well built. The fruits of Andrew Friedman and Brendan Gohm's labor in the offseason is going to show through this team, through the depth, through the ups and downs of 162. Maybe this team goes 162

and O, they're not going to do that. But they're off to the right start, being, 2 and O so far. Yeah, before we say goodbye, so when we were at spring training last week, AJ Prasinski was with us because we were hosting foul territory from all of the camps, and we were in the Dodgers Clubhouse, you and I and AJ, and Tony B from West Coast multimedia, and AJ was telling everybody in their mother, anybody that would listen that he was going to sell his hand because he shook Otani's hand as well as Sasaki's hand. Well, so did we. We shook Yamamoto's hand and Shohei's hand. But you know what? We're not important because apparently everybody can shake Shohei Otani's hand. There is a replica of Shohei's hand in his hometown in Japan. And you can go

and you can shake Shohei Otani's hand. Now this is a little creepy because she's rubbing the outside of his hand. Like she's super psyched about this. But we're not special is my point. And you two can go and shake Shohei Otani's hand. why why do people listen i i understand he's he's a superstar this is an international superstar but creepy i think is the correct word here i i don't want to really creepy is if it shook your hand back like what if it started moving oh yeah no thank you no thank you i'm out i'm out on this that's a that's a big no for me dog yeah that's a big no for me dog all right speaking of being out that we are out go back to bud clint you uh i know are tired it's like what it's like four or five

nineteen there i don't know what time it is six 19 right now in the a m on your a m dial all right clint and i are back on a regular show on thursday okay thanks for being with us today again like subscribe uh rate is five stars we appreciate you guys as always uh go dodgers we'll see you Thursday. Bye. At CVS, it matters that we're not just in your community, but that we're part of it. It matters that we're here for you when you need us, day or night, and we want everyone to feel welcomed and rewarded. It matters that CBS is here to fill your prescriptions and here to fill your craving for a tasty and, yeah, healthy snack. At CBS, we're proud to serve your community

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