THE Dodgers didn’t do their best to win. The baseball gods hate it.
If neither the Dodgers nor the New York Mets sweep the next three games, the National League Championship Series will return to Dodger Stadium and the Dodgers could just host another bullpen game. Their season could be on the line that day, and they’ll have to make better decisions than they did on Monday.
In a short series, every play counts. On Monday, the Dodgers made decisions that were more about winning the series than winning the game. Sometimes it works. Sometimes this is not the case. Otherwise, the winter will be long and harsh.
First things first: It’s not just me saying the Dodgers didn’t do their best to win.
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“It’s not a winner-takes-all game.” Dodgers manager Dave Roberts said after the match.
The NLCS is tied at one game apiece. The Dodgers have their only three starting pitchers lined up for all three games in New York: Walker Buehler, Yoshinobu Yamamoto And Jack Flaherty.
That left Monday’s game as a bullpen game. The Dodgers chose to start Ryan Brasierthe reliever who started the Dodgers’ last game in San Diego.
Brasier worked the first inning, allowing one run.
The Dodgers had 10 relievers on the roster Monday. With Brasier starting and Alex Vesia injured, the most reliable relievers remaining were Anthony Banda, Michael Kopech, Evan Phillips and Blake Treinen.
From the first round, Banda was warming up behind Brasier.
In the second inning, once the Dodgers decided Brasier was done, they turned to rookie Landon Knack.
The Dodgers, remember, are holding a bullpen game because they weren’t comfortable with Knack starting a playoff game.
So, in a one-run game, the first player out of the bullpen shouldn’t have been Knack.
Knack allowed five runs, including a grand slam, and none of the trusted relievers saved him. The Dodgers were down 6-0, en route to a Defeat 7-3.
But as they say in baseball, it’s not about the results. It’s about the process.
“You’re talking about the second inning there,” Roberts said. “So you have a guy on the mound who has to eat innings.”
In the bullpen game win in San Diego, Vesia and Daniel Hudson had eight outs. Roberts said Hudson was unavailable Monday — “he just had some things,” Roberts said — but declined to be specific.
“You’re going to have to take some outs from Knack,” Roberts said, “otherwise you’re just not going to finish the game.”
Once again, the Dodgers had 10 relievers on their roster Monday. With Brasier starting and Hudson unavailable, that left eight relievers to cover eight innings.
The Dodgers wanted Knack to eat some innings. In October?
In San Diego, the Dodgers smartly identified locations for all eight relievers that they used in their bullpen matchup. They could have done the same thing on Monday: the most reliable relievers for the top of the Mets’ lineup; the least experienced relievers for the bottom of the Mets lineup.
The Dodgers are as good as any team in baseball at making sure their relievers are properly rested during the season. But one of the reasons a team wants to make sure their relievers get proper rest during the season is so they can pitch as often as possible in October.
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The Dodgers preferred to start Buehler in Game 3 rather than Game 2 because the team had an off day after Game 2. The Dodgers had a day off Saturday, two relievers working an inning each Sunday and another day off Tuesday.
The top three relievers – Kopech, Phillips and Treinen – will be available Wednesday with four days of rest.
Why don’t the Dodgers go see their best relievers on Monday?
“You just can’t,” Roberts said. “Knack was going to have to pitch at some point. So if you succeed, you have four high-leverage guys available, right? You have to be able to somehow finish four or three innings of a game.
The Dodgers left the stadium Monday satisfied that they didn’t use three top relievers and that they scored enough to force the Mets to deploy three top relievers.
They did not leave the stadium victorious on Monday. If they don’t win the series, Monday will haunt them.
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This story was originally published in Los Angeles Times.
