PHILADELPHIA -- If the Phillies had gotten their way this offseason, Saturday evening would have looked very different at Citizens Bank Park.
For starters, Roki Sasaki would have been wearing a Phillies' alternate cream uniform rather than Dodger blue. His pregame introduction would not have elicited the smattering of boos from the Philadelphia faithful.
And the chorus of boos as he exited following the best start of his very young MLB career would have almost certainly been replaced with a raucous ovation from the sold-out crowd.
Most importantly, the Phillies would not have had to deal with Sasaki's elusive splitter -- one of the main reasons he was so highly coveted by seemingly every big league team this winter -- in Saturday's 3-1 loss.
“It was kind of like a screwball in a sense,” said Phillies second baseman Bryson Stott. “It goes up and it comes down really hard. It's a good pitch.”
“Funky splitter,” added shortstop Trea Turner. “It's different.”
The Phils made it clear they were pursuing Sasaki after the Japanese phenom was posted by the Chiba Lotte Marines of Nippon Professional Baseball at the start of the Winter Meetings.
"We’re very interested," president of baseball operations Dave Dombrowski admitted bluntly at the time.
Added manager Rob Thomson prior to Saturday’s game: "That's more above my pay grade, as they say -- but I do know we were interested, for sure."
And while the organization had a presentation fully prepped -- "Our people have been working on it for an extended time," Dombrowski said -- they never got their shot to make an in-person pitch.
"We haven't been invited to the table," Dombrowski said on Dec. 20.
Two days later, Philadelphia acquired Jesús Luzardo from the Marlins to help shore up the rotation. Less than a month later, Sasaki revealed in an Instagram post that he'd chosen the Dodgers.
One night after Luzardo tossed seven scoreless innings against the Dodgers (his second gem in as many outings as a Phillie), Sasaki held Philadelphia to one run off three hits -- all singles -- and two walks over four-plus innings.
Those numbers may not jump off the page, but it was clear the Phils were kept off-balance by the 23-year-old right-hander. After giving up three hard-hit balls (exit velocity of 95 mph or higher) to the five batters he faced in the first inning, Sasaki allowed just two to the final 12 batters he faced over the next three-plus frames.
It was no secret how Sasaki was approaching hitters. He relied almost entirely on a two-pitch mix of his four-seam fastball and his splitter -- and it was the latter he went to exclusively in putaway situations.
Sasaki threw 11 pitches in 0-2 or 1-2 counts. All 11 were splitters -- and all but one of those were out of the zone. The one splitter in the zone was fouled off by Brandon Marsh.
As for the other 10? The Phillies swung and missed four times (accounting for all of Sasaki’s strikeouts), took six balls and didn't put a single one in play.
And while the Phils have had problems chasing pitches over the past three seasons -- particularly in the postseason -- that hadn’t been the case early in 2025. They entered Saturday with a chase rate of just 24.7% this season -- the best mark in the Majors.
“The split was good,” Thomson said. “He got us out of the zone a few times -- more often than we have up to this point.”
For the Phillies to get where they want to go this season, they'll likely get another crack at solving Sasaki's splitter down the road. Yoshinobu Yamamoto -- who faced the Phillies for the first time in Friday night’s 3-2 win -- also throws an above-average splitter. (Not to mention the elite splitter of Shohei Ohtani, who threw a bullpen session at Citizens Bank Park before the teams took batting practice Saturday.)
Though it was only a few at-bats for each player in an early April game, could just seeing Sasaki’s “funky” splitter help come October?
“Absolutely, yeah,” Thomson said. “It helps.”
Turner elaborated a bit further.
“Yeah, I think so,” he said. “It's hard to explain unless you're in the box, but for us, just seeing all the pitches and shapes and whatnot helps you kind of gain ground for the next time around.”
And while Turner said this particular experience wasn’t fun given the end result, the Phillies welcome potential future meetings.
“You want to face the best,” Turner said. “You want to face Clayton Kershaw and Zack Wheeler and all these guys, because that's kind of how you measure yourself.
“It's fun going up against the best, and I think [Sasaki] could be one of them down the road."