So far this postseason, whenever Dodgers fans heard “Báilalo Rocky” ring through the loudspeakers, that meant two things were coming — pitcher Roki Sasaki was about to throw some vicious splitters in relief, and a Dodgers win was likely just a few outs away.
Sasaki’s walkout music has taken on a life of its own, in part because of the only-in-L.A. culture clash that has a sensational Japanese pitcher embracing a Latin club hit as he dominates the postseason. It’s helped cement Sasaki’s appeal among the Latino Dodgers faithful, and given the song a huge global boost as the Dodgers prepare for the start of World Series today.
Here’s a primer on how Sasaki found his hype track, and how it’s become the breakout hit of L.A. this fall.
So who wrote “Báilalo Rocky?”
The version of the song Sasaki walks out to is by Dj Roderick and Dj Jose Gonzalez and vocalist Ariadne Arana (there’s another popular version by Arana, the Dominican MC Yoan Retro and GMBeats Degranalo).
The song is a super-infectious and chantable dembow-house track, and its Spanish hook — “¡Báilalo, Rocky! / Ta, ta, ta, ta / Suéltale, suéltale” — is an invitation for a guy to dance and cut loose. But here, it’s directed at the young phenom Sasaki to bedevil hitters when he comes out in relief. The way Arana pronounces the hook makes it sound like she’s singing right at the Dodgers’ Roki.
That’s a left-field choice for a 23-year-old pitcher from Japan in his first year in L.A.. How did Sasaki discover it?
Dodgers veteran second baseman Miguel Rojas turned him onto the song during spring training this year, where it became a dugout favorite. (The whole dugout is known to pound on the railing when the track comes on.) Sasaki started using it in April, before a four-month recovery from a right shoulder impingement.
The theme song “was actually MiggyRo’s idea,” Sasaki said to press in Japanese last week. “I’m really happy the fans are enjoying it.”
There’s a delightful incongruity to the modest, laser-focused young Japanese pitcher walking out to a lascivious Latin club banger. But as Sasaki has rebounded from an injury-plagued midseason to become the Dodgers’ lights-out reliever in the postseason, ”It’s been special,” Rojas told press last week. “I feel like it just fits him really well.”
For her part, Arana loves the song’s new life as a hit Dodger theme. “The Dodgers are my team,” she’s said.
Has Sasaki’s blessing boosted the track?
Definitely. The song was already popular in Latin music circles, and it’s become a go-to cover and source material for Latin artists like corridos tumbados singer Tito Doble P and Lomiiel. Even other athletes, like Spanish soccer superstar Lamine Yamal, have gotten in on the track as a meme. It’s racked up tens of millions in Spotify and YouTube plays, where nearly every comment is now Sasaki-related.
In September, Sasaki was pitching for triple-A Oklahoma City and seemed unlikely to win a roster spot back in L.A. anytime soon. Two months later, however, after clutch saves and eye-popping velocity against the Reds, Phillies and Brewers en route to the World Series, he’s having “One of the great all-time appearances out of the ‘pen that I can remember,” as Dodgers manager Dave Roberts called it.
Sasaki’s not the only Dodger with an unexpected Latin walkout track — last year’s World Series hero Freddie Freeman takes the plate to Dayvi and Victor Cardenas’ “Baila Conmigo (ft. Kelly Ruiz).”
But if the Dodgers take home the title thanks to clutch Sasaki saves, Rojas hopes for a full “Báilalo Roki” edit. “I think he deserves a video and the lights go down and all that stuff,” Rojas told MLB.com. “I think that’s the next step for him.”
Dave Roberts often refers to his bullpen hierarchy as something of a “trust tree,” with branches of relievers he can trust in leverage spots.
Right now, however, it’s been more like a shriveled-up houseplant. Barren, depleted and long-shunned from the sun.
On the season, the Dodgers’ 4.33 bullpen ERA ranks 21st in the majors. Since the start of September, that number has climbed to a stunning 5.69 mark. Closer Tanner Scott has converted less than one-third of his save opportunities, his ERA rising to 4.91 after his latest meltdown on Tuesday. Top right-hander Blake Treinen had been the losing pitcher in each of the Dodgers’ five defeats before that, sending his ERA to a career-worst 5.55.
Plenty of others have been responsible for the Dodgers’ late-game incompetence. Kirby Yates has flopped as a veteran offseason signing. Michael Kopech has struggled through injuries and a lack of reliable command. Rookies like Jack Dreyer, Edgardo Henriquez and the since-demoted Ben Casparius have regressed after promising flashes earlier this summer. And the lone reinforcement the front office acquired at what now feels like a regrettably quiet trade deadline, Brock Stewart, is uncertain to return from a bothersome shoulder problem.
It leaves the Dodgers with only one full-time relief arm sporting an ERA under 3.00 this season — Alex Vesia, who has a 2.62 mark in 66 appearances.
It has turned the final days of the regular season into an all-out manhunt for even the slightest of trustworthy playoff options.
“What does that mean?” manager Dave Roberts said, when asked what qualifies as “trust” right now. “It means guys that are gonna take the mound with conviction. That are gonna be on the attack. That are gonna throw strikes, quality strikes, and compete. And be willing to live with whatever result.”
On Wednesday, that’s the backdrop against which Roki Sasaki rejoined the Dodgers’ active roster — the raw and developing 23-year-old rookie pitcher, coming off a five-month absence because of a shoulder injury, returning in hopes of supplying Roberts’ crippling trust tree with an unexpected limb.
Sasaki’s return was not supposed to be this important. Up until a couple weeks ago, his disappointing debut season seemed likely to end with a stint in the minors.
Yet over the last 15 days, circumstances have changed. Sasaki rediscovered 100-mph life on his fastball. He excelled in two relief appearances with triple-A Oklahoma City. And suddenly, he seemed like a potentially better alternative to the slumping names that have repeatedly failed on the Dodgers’ big-league roster.
Thus, the Japanese phenom is back again, activated from the IL before Wednesday’s game as Yates, who has a 5.23 ERA this year and was slipping out of the Dodgers’ postseason plans, was placed on the IL with a hamstring strain.
“I just think [he needs to focus on] giving everything he has for an inning or two at a time, and let the performance play out,” Roberts said of Sasaki. “Just go after guys, and be on the attack.”
Sasaki’s revival began earlier this month, when he went to Arizona after four poor starts in a minor-league rehab assignment to work with the organization’s pitching development coaches.
At that point, Sasaki had lost his tantalizing velocity, hardly even threatening 100 mph since his adrenaline-fueled debut in Tokyo back in March. His command was just as shaky, averaging more than 5 ½ walks per nine innings in his first season stateside. Even his pitch mix required an examination, after his predominantly fastball/splitter arsenal was hammered in both the majors (where he had a 4.72 ERA in eight starts to begin the season) and the minors (where he had a 7.07 ERA in his first four rehab starts) by hitters who could too easily differentiate his stuff.
“Me, him and his translators went in the lab and sat down and watched video for a few hours, and just talked,” said Rob Hill, the Dodgers’ director of pitching who worked with Sasaki at the club’s Arizona facility. “It wasn’t as much solving this like, master plan or whatever. It was moreso helping him actualize the things that he was seeing.”
In Hill’s view, Sasaki’s mechanics had suffered from a shoulder injury that, even before this year, had plagued him since his final season in Japan.
While the two watched film, Hill said they found discrepancies between things Sasaki “still almost thought he was doing” in his delivery, but weren’t translating in how he actually threw the ball.
“I think a lot of it just came from his body changing, the way he was throwing due to throwing hurt for probably a couple years,” Hill said. “He knew what he wanted to do, but he couldn’t quite tap into the way to do it.”
What followed was a series of mechanical tweaks that got Sasaki’s fastball back around 100 and his trademark splitter to more closely mirror his four-seamer when it left his hand. Sasaki also added a cutter-like slider, giving him another weapon with which to confuse hitters and induce more soft contact.
When the right-hander returned to the minors, he struck out eight batters over a solid 4 ⅔-inning, three-run start on Sept. 9. He then impressed with two scoreless appearances in relief last week, after club executives asked Sasaki to experiment in the bullpen.
Now, he is rejoining the Dodgers for the final five games of the season. The team is hopeful that his small sample size of recent success has made him a legitimate postseason relief option.
“I guess it’s fair to say I’m just going to throw him in on the deep end,” Roberts said of how he will use Sasaki going forward, noting there aren’t many “low-leverage” opportunities in an end-of-season division race.
“If we’re expecting him to potentially pitch for us in the postseason, they’re all leverage innings. So I don’t think we’re going to run from putting him in any spot.”
Odds are that Sasaki won’t be a cure-all for the Dodgers’ late-game woes. A pitcher of such little experience and developmental uncertainties is anything but a lock to post zeroes in the playoffs.
Still, the team will take whatever bullpen help it can get. Already, Clayton Kershaw has made himself available for relief appearances and could pitch in late-inning leverage spots in October. Emmet Sheehan also will join the bullpen mix come the playoffs, likely as a multi-inning option to piggyback with starters.
In the meantime, the club is searching for even a couple more reliable arms — just one or two branches on the bullpen’s hierarchy tree for Roberts to trust.
It wasn’t supposed to be this way. The Dodgers’ sudden need for someone like Sasaki is a reflection of the roster’s underlying flaws. But he will try taking on a potentially critical role in a rookie season that once seemed lost.
“He’s been in the ‘pen for the triple-A team, and he’s been really good,” Roberts said. “So I’m looking forward to seeing it with our club.”
Like pretty much every other time the Dodgers have found themselves in a self-made mess, the task of downplaying a major problem once again was made the responsibility of manager Dave Roberts.
The point relayed by Roberts was basically this: Sasaki underwhelmed in his eight major league starts because of a shoulder pain that he kept secret from the Dodgers “for the last weeks,” and not because the 23-year-old rookie right-hander wasn’t as good as they previously thought.
“He hasn’t been as productive as he would have liked because he was compromised,” said Roberts, who added that Sasaki revealed his condition to the team after his most recent start.
The explanation raised an equally alarming possibility, however.
If Roberts’ story was accurate, and Sasaki experienced a shoulder impingement to the one that slowed him down last year in Japan, wouldn’t that point to a chronic problem?
As it was, Sasaki was already viewed as a high injury risk. He never remained healthy for an entire season with the Chiba Lotte Marines.
At this point, what’s worse? That Sasaki’s lack of control and decline in fastball velocity were because of a chronic shoulder issue? Or because he just was too raw to compete in the major leagues?
Either scenario would be problematic.
So, what now?
As much as the Dodgers sold Sasaki on how they could one day guide him to a Cy Young Award, his future isn’t their only priority. They also have to consider what’s best for their team, which is positioned to become baseball’s first repeat champion in a quarter century.
Even if the Dodgers acknowledge that Sasaki is more of a long-term project than a short-term solution and want to send him to the minor leagues when he returns, they might not have the luxury of doing so. They have signed four potential frontline pitchers in the last two years, and three of them are currently on the injured list — Sasaki, Blake Snell and Tyler Glasnow. The other, two-way player Shohei Ohtani, isn’t expected to pitch until after the All-Star break.
Snell was examined by a team doctor on Tuesday but the team didn’t provide any details about his condition. Glasnow played catch but Roberts didn’t provide a timeline for his return.
The rotation is in such a state of ruin that not only were the Dodgers forced to start Landon Knack on Tuesday, they were desperately awaiting the return of 37-year-old Clayton Kershaw four days later.
Roberts described Sasaki’s injury as “benign” but didn’t say when he might resume throwing. The manager insisted there were no thoughts of sending him to the minors, despite Sasaki posting a 4.72 earned-run average and completing six innings in just one start.
“I think our goal is to get him healthy, get him strong, make sure his delivery is sound for him to pitch for us,” Roberts said.
In other words, Sasaki will return to the mound in the major leagues. He will have to gain familiarity with low-quality American baseballs in the major leagues. He will have to become more comfortable with the pitch clock in the major leagues. He will have to strengthen his body to prevent future injuries in the major leagues. He will have to learn to throw something other than a fastball, forkball and slider in the major leagues.
The Dodgers knew Sasaki would require an adjustment period but they couldn’t have imagined anything this drastic.
The introductory news conference they staged for Sasaki in January was matched in scale in recent years only by Ohtani’s and Yoshinobu Yamamoto’s. That was where president of baseball operations Andrew Friedman declared Sasaki would start the season in the Dodgers’ rotation and general manager Brandon Gomes compared him to Paul Skenes of the Pittsburgh Pirates.
Back then, the Dodgers’ plan for Sasaki was simple: Insert him into the rotation and watch him develop into one of the best pitchers in baseball.
Sasaki can still become everything the Dodgers envisioned, but his path to greatness has become infinitely more complicated. Roberts remained characteristically upbeat, saying Sasaki concealed his shoulder problems from the team not because he was selfish but because he didn’t want to let down an injury-ravaged team.
“He’s a great teammate,” Roberts said.
With his rotation crumbling, Roberts didn’t have the luxury of viewing the situation any other way.
In the Tokyo Dome in March, you could almost hear the zip of the ball.
101 mph.
The pop of the catcher’s mitt sounded like a gunshot.
100 mph.
Roki Sasaki would lift his left leg almost to his head, stretch far down the front side of the mound, and let out a grunt as a blur of white leather came screaming from his hand.
100 mph.
For a brief moment, at the very start of his Major League Baseball career, it seemed like the Japanese phenom pitching prospect had already achieved one of his most important rookie objectives.
100 mph.
During his MLB debut in Japan, Sasaki hit those 100-plus-mph velocities on each of his first four big-league pitches. In the first inning of that March 19 game against the Chicago Cubs, he eclipsed 99 mph eight times in a 1-2-3 frame.
For a developing young pitcher who came to the majors this offseason fixated on improving his fastball speeds, it was a promising early sign — an apparent indication that, after suffering a slight drop in fastball velo during his last season in Japan, the 6-foot-4 flamethrower still possessed triple-digit life.
“The velocity,” manager Dave Roberts said that day, “was good.”
Roki Sasaki’s first four pitches of his MLB debut against the Chicago Cubs at the Tokyo Dome in March were at least 100 mph. He has not reached that velocity since.
(Robert Gauthier / Los Angeles Times)
Almost two months later, however, in one of the more confounding developments of the Dodgers’ otherwise successful start to the season, Sasaki hasn’t come close to even flirting with 100 mph again.
Instead, over a choppy seven-game sample following the team’s return from Japan, Sasaki has struggled to consistently throw the ball hard, averaging just 96 mph with his four-seamer on the whole this season while sometimes dropping down to the 92-93 mph range.
“It’s not an ideal situation,” pitching coach Mark Prior said. “Clearly, the fastball is not gonna carry through the zone at 93 very effectively.”
For some pitchers, this wouldn’t be as pressing a problem. Even in an era of rising fastball velocities around the sport, sitting in the mid-90s is still safely above the major-league average.
Sasaki, however, needs premium velocity (plus consistent command) to make his heater competitive. Because, for all his other raw natural talent, there isn’t much natural deception to the pitch.
Unlike the best fastballs in the sport, Sasaki doesn’t throw his four-seamer with much spin or “vertical break” (pitch characteristics that can give fastballs a rising illusion as they barrel toward the plate). While others can miss bats at even below-average pitch speeds, Sasaki’s four-seamer has a flatter shape that’s easier to hit.
As a result, his fastball has always been predicated on eye-popping velocity — requiring elite radar-gun readings to blow opponents away.
“The velocity allows for that margin of error,” Prior said last week. “And clearly, that’s not there [right now].”
In evaluating Sasaki’s underwhelming start to the season — he has a 4.72 ERA and 1.485 WHIP in his first eight starts, logging just 34 ⅓ innings with only 24 strikeouts and a whopping 22 walks — the most glaring red flag has been the performance of his fastball.
So far, his trademark splitter has been an effective weapon, yielding just a .158 batting average to opponents while generating whiffs on 35% of swings. His lesser-used slider has been a fine secondary option, with opponents batting just three-for-12 against it while coming up empty on 33% of swings.
Sasaki’s fastball, on the other hand, has been susceptible to the improved level of hitting he has faced in the big leagues, resulting in a .253 opponent batting average, a .494 slugging percentage, almost as many home runs allowed (six, not even including two others that were robbed on leaping catches by Andy Pages) as strikeouts generated (eight), and a 10.1% whiff rate that ranks fifth-lowest for four-seamers among qualified MLB starters.
Granted, Sasaki’s lack of command has factored into such struggles, leaving him all too often in unfavorable hitter’s counts where opponents are better primed to square up mistakes.
“I think guys are on his fastball because it’s the one thing that’s probably in the zone more than anything,” Prior said. “This goes back to his ability to throw the other pitches for strikes, and be able to mix, probably balance with all three.”
Still, since that adrenaline-fueled debut in his home country, Sasaki hasn’t thrown even one fastball that has topped 99 mph. In that same span, he has chucked 27 that failed to eclipse 94 mph. Each week, his declining fastball velocity has become a bigger conversation point around his outings. But so far, few answers have materialized about how he can fix it.
“Just really still in this process of finding out what the root cause [is],” Sasaki said through interpreter Will Ireton this past weekend, after the Arizona Diamondbacks teed off on a heater that averaged 94.9 mph in a four-inning, five-run start that represented his worst outing of the year.
“[I’m] working with my coaches, talking to people about this,” Sasaki added. “I’m not quite exactly sure and can’t really state exactly the single reason.”
The Dodgers’ coaching staff has faced the same conundrum this year, struggling to identify exactly why an element so critical to Sasaki’s success — fastball velocity was such a point of emphasis during Sasaki’s free agency this winter, he gave interested clubs a “homework assignment” about how they planned to improve it — has been so far from advertised during the start of his rookie season.
Prior acknowledged that there are “clearly some delivery things” that Sasaki is “still trying to work through” right now. After struggling with wild command in his first few appearances, Sasaki and the team also discussed whether slightly dialing back on the intensity of his throws could help him more consistently locate pitches over the plate.
Mechanics alone, however, don’t explain why Sasaki’s fastball has dropped into the low 90s for some stretches of the year, Prior countered.
And though Sasaki’s command has somewhat improved while throwing with less velocity, both he and Prior insisted his velo hasn’t dropped this far on purpose.
“For us, it’s always been like, ‘If it’s 100 or if it’s 98, that’s fine, if it’s easier to control or something like that.’ We had that conversation,” Prior said. “But nothing to the degree of where it’s been.”
Given that Sasaki has shown no signs of any physical ailment, it’s possible he could be experiencing more of a pitch conviction issue in his new MLB surroundings, potentially lacking the internal confidence to let his fastball consistently rip at top speeds.
“We go back to the drawing board every week with him. We try to talk to him about some certain things, some ideas,” Prior said. “But ultimately, he’s working through his process, and we’re just trying to support him with everything we can.”
To this point, that process has not involved the addition of a different fastball variety more apt at generating soft contact, such as a two-seamer or cutter. Sasaki has said repeatedly that his primary goal is to first refine his primary fastball-splitter arsenal.
“There’s been a lot of conversations about a lot of different things,” Prior said. “Again, we go every week with him, and we’ve been trying to shed light on things where we think there’s gonna be some improvement. But ultimately, again, I think it’s just him trying to get his footing under him, and be comfortable in what he’s doing.”
Indeed, the Dodgers continue to argue that this is all part of Sasaki’s long-term development arc — inevitable growing pains for a superstar who, despite all the hoopla that surrounded his signing, arrived in the majors as an admitted work in progress.
“He’s certainly talented,” Roberts said. “But there’s finishing school. That’s something that we were prepared for. I know it’s harder for him to embrace not having complete success, but this is a tough league.”
When Sasaki’s fastball has ticked up, he’s gotten results, too. On heaters thrown at 97 mph or above, opponents are batting just .133 with a .333 slugging percentage, and swinging-and-missing almost twice as often.
“He will make adjustments given how the hitters respond,” Roberts said. “I think you learn that by doing that here.”
But until that happens, and Sasaki’s fastball starts returning to the upper 90s or 100-mph levels he flashed in Japan, more struggles could lie ahead. More growing pains might have to be endured.
