Friday, July 24, 2026

Copyrighted by Sarah Morris, 2026

For the second consecutive outing, Roki Sasaki was dominant, and the slumping Kyle Tucker had an important two-run homer.

The Los Angeles Dodgers defeated the New York Mets, 4–2, on a beautiful Friday night at Citi Field.

During the All-Star break, Sasaki discovered something in his delivery in his lower body to fix and exchanged his glove for a bigger one. The bigger glove helped prevent him from tipping his pitches. Having his legs put under him better helped his velocity and command.

On Friday, Sasaki induced 22 whiffs, a season high for the Dodgers. For the first time in his major league career, he struck out the side. His slider and splitter had tremendous movement that baffled the struggling Mets. In his seven innings, Sasaki struck out nine while walking two.

Following Sasaki, Evan Phillips allowed a solo home run in the eighth inning, and Tanner Scott was perfect in the ninth inning to earn his fifteenth save of the year. Since Edwin Dìaz is expected to return during this upcoming homestand, Scott is becoming a setup man, but Scott has done an excellent job as a closer for the Dodgers.

While the Dodgers’ pitching was sharp on Friday, their offense frustrated everyone when they went 1-for-13 with runners in scoring position. In the fourth inning, Miguel Rojas had a sacrifice fly, and in the seventh inning, Shohei Ohtani brought in another run with a sacrifice fly. After Freddie Freeman collected his third hit of the game in the eighth, Tucker delivered with a two-run homer.

Yoshinobu Yamamoto will look to strengthen his campaign for the National League Cy Young Award on Saturday against the Mets.