Dodgers remain unshaken in their World Series pitching strategy

Staff Writer

Oct. 30, 2024 3 AM PT

NEW YORK — The Dodgers trailed by one run, with four innings to go. Did the Dodgers consider using one of their top relievers?

“Doesn’t make sense,” Dodgers manager Dave Roberts said.

The Dodgers trailed by two runs, with two innings to go. A bloop and a blast, as they say, and the Dodgers would have tied the game. Did the Dodgers consider using one of their top relievers?

“No,” Roberts said.

This is the World Series, not the third week of August.

The Dodgers could have gone for the jugular, and the World Series sweep, against the New York Yankees on Tuesday. The coaching staff and the front office decided not to do so.

With four chances to win the clinching game of the World Series, the Dodgers decided not to risk exhausting their pitching staff Tuesday, thus weakening it for a potential game Wednesday.

There will be a Game 5 on Wednesday. If the Dodgers could not win Tuesday, did Roberts believe the outcome in terms of the pitching plan went as well as could be expected? “Absolutely,” Roberts said.

It is stunning that the Dodgers — the team with the best record in the major leagues — literally ran out of starting pitchers and still advanced to the World Series.

Tuesday marked the last of the Dodgers’ bullpen games this postseason. They won two, lost two.

They have their three proven starters lined up for the rest of the series. Jack Flaherty starts Game 5. If the series returns to Los Angeles, Yoshinobu Yamamoto would start Game 6, with Walker Buehler set for a potential Game 7.

One win to go.

“I’m not worried about how I expected the series to play out,” Flaherty said before Tuesday’s game. “I’m just worried about getting one more.”

There was a time in baseball — and for some teams this is still the time — when teams would not use their top relievers in certain regular-season games, when the situation appeared to call for it. The reason: Those relievers needed to be fresh and ready to pitch every day in October, if needed.

On the latest frontier of analytics research, this is not considered wise. If a reliever faces the opposing team too often, no matter how fresh that reliever might be, the opposing batters might adjust to his repertoire and become more likely to hit him hard.

In this World Series, the Yankees are old school: Use your best relievers as often as possible. Five relievers have worked in at least three of the four games; Clay Holmes has worked in all four.

The Dodgers are new school: No reliever has worked in all four. Three have worked in three of the four games, including left-handers Anthony Banda and Alex Vesia.

In the third inning, with Daniel Hudson struggling and three of the Yankees’ left-handed batters due up within a span of four batters, Roberts declined to use Banda or Vesia.

“I just wasn’t going to use them in the third inning,” Roberts said.

Hudson gave up a grand slam to Anthony Volpe (who, in fairness, bats right-handed). The Yankees took the lead and never surrendered it.

With the Dodgers down two in the eighth inning, Roberts summoned Brent Honeywell Jr., making his first appearance in 11 days, and directed him to finish. He did, but not before giving up five runs in one inning and making 50 pitches. No pitcher has made more pitches in a postseason appearance of one inning or less, according to Jay Jaffe of Fangraphs.

And, also in fairness, analytics were not to blame for all that ailed the Dodgers on Tuesday.

Of the Yankees’ first five runs, three were scored by players who had reached base on a walk or hit by pitch.

In the eighth inning, the Yankees stole three bases off Honeywell — one of them a steal of third base with a left-handed batter at the plate.

Over the final four innings — all but one of which started with the Dodgers down by one or two runs — the Dodgers went 0 for 12, with six strikeouts.

And here is one more statistic for you: In what was a bullpen game for the Dodgers, the Yankees used more pitchers.

No team in major league history has won the first three games of the World Series and lost the series. No team with a 3-0 lead even needed a Game 6 to clinch.

The Dodgers will, if they lose on Wednesday.

During the National League Championship Series, Roberts said he would not manage in the postseason today as he had in 2017, when he used reliever Brandon Morrow in all seven games of the World Series. “I have evolved,” he said.

None of these relievers pitched Tuesday: Banda, Vesia, Blake Treinen, Michael Kopech, Ryan Brasier and Brusdar Graterol.

So the Dodgers feel about the same as they did on the day before Game 6 of the NLCS, when the Dodgers clinched their World Series berth. On that day, Roberts said: “I don’t think we’ve exposed our high-leverage guys at all.”

It doesn’t quite have the ring of “If you don’t love the Dodgers, there’s a good chance you may not get into heaven.” But that is where the Dodgers are today, still one victory from a championship.