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The story
Dodgers pitcher Roki Sasaki was pulled after just 3⅓ innings against the Braves due to a finger blister, and has now been placed on the injured list. On 5channel, comments calling him “too much of a Spelunker” (a nod to the fragile video-game character, used here to mean injury-prone) stood out, along with posts explaining that he can’t use super glue on the blister and has to make do with medical tape instead. With attention on whether he could hold down his rotation spot, reactions poured in comparing this setback to last year’s.
Roki Sasaki of the Los Angeles Dodgers started on the road against the Atlanta Braves on August 26 (local time), a game the Dodgers lost 6-5. He allowed 4 runs in 3⅓ innings and missed out on his 6th win of the season (5th loss).
Sasaki gave up a go-ahead solo home run to the Braves’ No. 3 hitter Matt Olson in the first inning, but held them scoreless in the second and third. Then, with the score 3-1, trouble hit in the fourth.
Sasaki walked leadoff batter Ozzie Albies, who then stole second. A single by No. 7 hitter Mike Yastrzemski put runners on first and third with none out, and a sacrifice fly from Austin Riley brought in a run.
Source: news.yahoo.co.jp / Original article here
What people said
That's obviously not what it means. For what it's worth, this is only his second pro season and he hasn't had an injury-related absence before now — he just started out in the minors.
There sure are more and more people who can't read Japanese properly these days.
This was going around in yesterday's live-commentary thread.
But last year even Yamamoto pitching on zero days' rest was better than him…
That counts as using a sticky substance, so it's banned. Roberts said he's fine to practice normally if he wraps it in medical tape, but of course that's banned in games too.
Background and Key Points
Roki Sasaki, the 23-year-old Japanese right-hander who signed with the Dodgers this offseason after a heavily scouted NPB career with the Chiba Lotte Marines, is on the injured list with a finger blister after lasting just 3⅓ innings against the Braves on August 26. This is his second MLB season; last year he was called up to the majors only very late (after unremarkable Triple-A time in Oklahoma) and pitched almost exclusively as a reliever down the stretch. This year was meant to be his real audition as a starter, but he’s now failed to complete a full season two years running — though, as posters point out, only one of those absences was actually injury-related, since last year’s shortened role was a demotion/roster decision, not a physical issue. Blisters on pitching fingers are a known MLB scourge (fingertip skin tears from spin-heavy grips like Sasaki’s splitter), and treatment is tightly regulated: sticky substances like super glue are banned by MLB’s foreign-substance rules, so pitchers are generally limited to medical tape, which itself isn’t permitted for in-game use either.
The thread’s real disagreement isn’t about the blister itself but about what it means for his future: some see a pitcher who simply can’t hold a rotation spot and is being written off as “unusable” as a starter (with one comparing him unfavorably to journeyman Tomoyuki Sugano), while others argue he’s already exceeding expectations for a two-year pro and that the Dodgers’ postseason-first roster construction (Ohtani starting, Sasaki as a shutdown relief weapon in October) makes his regular-season workload almost beside the point.
What outside readers likely miss is that “Spelunker,” the recurring nickname, references a notoriously fragile 1980s Japanese platformer character who dies from minor falls — it’s a pure injury-prone joke, not a comment on skill. Also worth noting: the thread never mentions that blister injuries are rarely long-term; they’re typically a two-to-three week absence, not a structural setback.
This article is excerpted and summarized from the 5channel (Geinou/Sports News+) thread “[MLB] Roki Sasaki placed on the injured list — a heartbreaking exit down the stretch, still no complete season.”
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