LOS ANGELES, CA — Roki Sasaki had his second start in Dodger Stadium Saturday night, and LA fans were hoping for a repeat from Friday when they saw Sasaki’s fellow Japanese countryman, Yoshinobu Yamamoto, absolutely stifle the Cubs with one of the most dominating pitching performances of the 2025 season so far.
Roki Sasaki took the mound at Dodger Stadium for his second time of his MLB career Saturday night – Image Credit: MLB
The 23-year-old right-handed phenom possesses a 97-102 fastball with arm-side run and a nasty 85 splitter or forkball with sharp breaking action left or right of the strike zone.
In the second inning, former Dodger prospect Michael Bush hit a 98 mph fastball 378 feet into the left-field pavilion to open the scoring. Then, in the next inning, after loading the bases, Bush was robbed of a grand slam by Andy Pages, Havana, Cuba, who made an outstanding over-the-wall catch in dead center.
At that point, Sasaki lost his command and control of all his pitches, but because of some outstanding defense, the score remained 1-0—Cubs through Sasaki’s five innings pitched.
His opponent was 25-year-old right-hander Ben Brown from East Setauket, Long Island, New York. Brown stood 1-1 with an ERA of 7.71 in his first three starts of this young season. He kept the Dodgers off balance for six innings with 96-97 fastballs and a sharp-breaking 86-88 knuckle-curveball.
The Long Island, New York native Ben Brown threw six shutout innings vs. the Dodgers on Saturday night – Image Credit: MLB
He left the game after six innings with zero runs allowed, no walks, and five strikeouts.
And then the Cubs put the game away, scoring six earned runs off of reliever Ben Casparius and four off of Luis García, Santo Domingo, Dominican Republic, over two innings.
They would add five more runs off position player turned pitcher Miguel Rojas, Los Teques, Venezuela.
Dodgers infielder Miguel Rojas made a pitching appearance in Saturday’s beatdown by the Cubs at Dodger Stadium – Image Credit: FOX Sports MLB
It could have been worse for the Dodgers if the famous “Marine Layer” off the Pacific Ocean didn’t keep several Cubs hits from going out of the ballpark.
It was the worst home shutout on the Dodgers in their franchise’s history—10,816 home games—dating back to 1884.
The Cubs evened up the series at one game apiece with this 16-0 win and put LA in a position to lose three consecutive series if they go down in their Sunday Night Baseball matchup on ESPN.
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