One month ago Tuesday, Roki Sasaki was in Tacoma, Wash. , warming for his second career Triple-A relief outing. He entered in the sixth inning, getting two grounders and a strikeout as he retired a prospect and a pair of hitters who’d combined to hit .234/.268/.308 in the Majors this year and haven’t been anywhere near Seattle’s playoff push.

Late-September middle relief work in a Comets uniform was, needless to say, about as far as you could be from the status expected when Sasaki joined the Dodgers as one of the most-hyped international free agents in years. Of course, that was before the eight ineffective starts and the months missed to injury and his near-total disappearance from the daily baseball world as the Dodger rotation rounded into form .

Two weeks before that o

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