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Roki Sasaki was pulled from his start on Wednesday in the fourth inning due to a blister on the middle finger of his right hand, per Dodger Blue. The timing couldn’t be worse. Just as the rotation looked like it was about to be at full strength — with Tyler Glasnow back from the 60-day IL and Shohei Ohtani‘s return to the mound on the horizon — we now have a new question mark to deal with.

Sasaki has been one of the more fascinating arms in baseball since he arrived from Japan. The right-hander came to the Dodgers with enormous expectations after his dominant run in NPB, where he famously threw a perfect game and regularly sat in the upper-90s with a devastating splitter. His 2026 season in the big leagues has been about building innings and finding consistency in an American baseball environment that presents different challenges — different balls, different mounds, different travel demands. A blister might sound minor in a vacuum, but for a pitcher whose effectiveness hinges on spin and feel for that splitter, anything affecting his throwing hand is a legitimate concern. Blisters are notoriously tricky for pitchers. They can heal quickly or they can linger and recur, and the timeline is rarely predictable.

The fact that Sasaki couldn’t finish the fourth inning suggests this wasn’t something he could simply pitch through. Blisters tend to worsen as the game goes on — the friction, the sweat, the repeated stress on the same spot. If the skin breaks open, you’re looking at a situation where the pitcher loses command entirely and risks making things worse. The Dodgers clearly made the smart call pulling him before it got to that point. I’d expect we’ll hear more about the severity and a potential timeline in the coming days.

For the Dodgers, this is the kind of thing that tests depth. We just got Glasnow back and watched him look sharp in his return. Ohtani’s pitching rehab has reportedly been tracking toward him rejoining the rotation soon. Tarik Skubal, Yoshinobu Yamamoto, and Blake Snell round out a rotation that, on paper, is historically stacked. But “on paper” doesn’t pitch innings, and this season has been a constant reminder that health is the variable you can’t control. If Sasaki needs to miss a start or two, the front office has options — Landon Knack, Gavin Stone, and others are stretched out in the minors. But none of them are Roki Sasaki.

The bigger-picture worry is whether this becomes a recurring issue. Some pitchers deal with blisters once and move on. Others — and we’ve seen this across the league over the years — fight them on and off for stretches of a season. Sasaki’s workload has been managed carefully since he got here, so it’s not an overuse situation. Sometimes it’s just bad luck, a callus that doesn’t form right, or a seam that catches a raw spot. We’ll be watching this one closely. The Dodgers need Sasaki healthy down the stretch, and there’s no sense in rushing him back if the blister isn’t fully healed.

Source(s): Staff (Dodger Blue) | First reported: August 27, 2026 1:03 AM UTC

God Bless and Go Dodgers