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The Dodgers left for Denver on Sunday night, but Roki Sasaki was not on the team flight — a deliberate move by the organization despite Sasaki being listed as the probable starter for the series finale against the Colorado Rockies, per DodgerBlue.com. Yoshinobu Yamamoto was also among those who did not travel with the team, though Sasaki’s absence drew the most attention given his upcoming start.

The thinking here is straightforward: keep Sasaki away from altitude as long as possible. Denver is a unique challenge for any pitcher, and the Dodgers are hoping that minimizing his time at elevation before he takes the mound will give him a better shot at performing well. It’s a small, calculated edge — the kind of thing front offices obsess over — and it tells you the team is being very intentional about managing Sasaki’s workload and environment.

Sasaki has been one of the more closely watched arms in baseball since arriving from Japan. His stuff is electric — the fastball-splitter combination remains devastating when it’s working — but pitching at Coors Field is a different animal entirely. The thin air can flatten breaking pitches and turn routine fly balls into extra-base hits. Every pitcher adjusts differently, and the Dodgers clearly want to limit any additional variables they can control. Keeping him at sea level for an extra chunk of time is a minor logistical move, but it reflects how carefully the organization is handling him.

As for Yamamoto, his exclusion from the flight is less eyebrow-raising since he’s not lined up to start during this series. He last pitched on August 14, and keeping him off the plane likely just reflects normal rest-day travel flexibility that teams build into their schedules, especially for pitchers who aren’t on immediate call.

I like this kind of attention to detail from the Dodgers. Coors Field has humbled plenty of elite arms over the years, and if giving Sasaki a later arrival shaves even a fraction off the altitude adjustment, it’s worth doing. We’ve seen other teams experiment with similar approaches — limiting pitchers’ exposure to Denver’s elevation before starts — and the logic is sound even if the actual impact is hard to quantify. The Dodgers aren’t leaving anything to chance with their rotation, and that’s exactly the kind of organizational thoroughness you want to see down the stretch.

Source(s): Staff (DodgerBlue.com) | First reported: August 19, 2026 2:32 PM UTC

God Bless and Go Dodgers