Sasaki latest Dodger to IL; no timeline for return

LOS ANGELES — Touted Los Angeles Dodgers rookie Roki Sasaki landed on the injured list Tuesday because of right shoulder impingement, an injury similar to one he had in Japan last year.

He told the team his arm was sore after his last start, in which he pitched on five days’ rest for the first time in the majors. Sasaki threw four innings and gave up five runs on 61 pitches Friday at Arizona.

“What we gather is he’s felt some discomfort for the last few weeks,” manager Dave Roberts said after an 11-1 loss to the Athletics, “but given where we’re at as a pitching staff he wanted to continue to go and persevere and fight through everything until he felt that his performance was going to be compromised. That’s when he let us know where he was at physically.”

Sasaki underwent scans on Monday’s off day that revealed the problem. Roberts said there was no timeline for his return.

“I don’t think that any expectation is fair to him,” he said.

Sasaki is 1-1 with a 4.72 ERA in eight starts. He has 24 strikeouts in 34⅓ innings while holding opposing hitters to a .225 average. Sasaki was scheduled to start Thursday against the Athletics. Instead, the Dodgers are likely to go with a bullpen game.

Sasaki won’t pick up a baseball for a while, Roberts said.

The 23-year-old right-hander joined the Dodgers in January after spending the past four years with the Chiba Lotte Marines of the Nippon Professional Baseball League. He sat out time last year because of shoulder fatigue that limited him to 18 starts and 111 innings.

“We’re very grateful that with the scans that we took that it is similar to what he’s already been through before, so something familiar to him,” Roberts said. “We just feel that wit