CLEVELAND – Walker Buehler pitched four shutout innings for the Dodgers in NLCS Game 3 on Wednesday and was hailed as if he had climbed the Mount Everest of pitching.

Matt Boyd put together five one-run innings for the Guardians in ALCS Game 3 on Thursday and I was assured to show up for Game 4 and at Progressive Field Gate C the lefty would have a statue right next to Bob Veller’s.

Of course, everything is in comparison, and in Games 1 and 2, Cleveland starters Alex Cobb and Tanner Bibee had put up four combined innings and six runs.

And in the 34 postseason games reached Thursday, relievers had delivered more innings in October (301 2-3) than starters (296 2-3). Twelve of the 68 starts were two innings or less, reflecting both openers and quick hooks. Only one, from Baltimore’s Corbin Burnes, reached the eighth inning and another seven completed seven innings.

I wonder if we’ll start to see the devastating impact of this trend on bullpens as relievers are taxed and overexposed to hitters like never before. For example, there have already been 14 saves in these playoffs, two more than any other postseason outside of 2020 (when the postseason had 16 teams). Dynamic closers in Cleveland’s Emmanuel Clase, Houston’s Josh Hader and Milwaukee’s Devin Williams have made saves, as have Edwin Diaz, Philadelphia’s Carlos Estevez and the meteor of the moment, Luke Weaver.

Fifty-two minutes apart on Thursday night in ALCS Game 3, Clase blew his first save since May 19 and Weaver his first ever in a game that ended with Cleveland winning 7-5 in 10 innings and both teams knowing they weren’t even halfway through the pens. were tired. if this series lasts seven games.

We have been on this journey for years through the metric revolution. It became clear that all pitchers needed to throw harder, spin more and get the most out of each pitch. That has led to both more injuries and shorter starts. The shorter starts are due to the fact that you don’t hold anything back for a marathon. And why hold back? Many starters these days are not allowed to go around a lineup more than twice, sometimes once at this time of year.

The domino effect is that there are more relievers in the game. It stifles the offense because seeing so many different high-octane arms going from blow to blow does that. But then again, more pitching injuries stem from the grip-it-and-rip-it philosophy. And it just becomes a numbers game using so many weapons: how many weapons are actually qualified? In September, when rosters expanded to 14 pitchers, there were still several times Aaron Boone said he was short in the bullpen.

By the time the postseason arrived, the Tigers were trying to win with essentially one starter, likely AL Cy Young winner Tarik Skubal. The Mets with Kodai Senga and the Guardians with Cobb tried to rehab and extend an injury recovery starter in October. The Dodgers actually have a pitching staff on the IL.

The Guardians had two different bullpens. They have four relievers who have appeared in the most games (regular plus postseason) this year in Hunter Gaddis (84 games), Tim Herrin (82), Cade Smith (81) and Clase (79), combined with new weapons that were brought up late in the season. Joey Cantillo, Eric Sabrowski and Andrew Walters. Clase has allowed five earned runs and two home runs in 74 1-3 regular season innings and now six earned runs and three home runs in six postseason innings. Clase surrendered as many home runs to Judge and Giancarlo Stanton in three minutes on Thursday night as he did in six regular-season months.

The Yanks have had a lot of days off since the end of the regular season. Still, Clay Holmes and Weaver had appeared in all seven of the Yankees’ playoff games. In the seventh, Weaver allowed a two-out, ninth-inning homer to Jhonkensy Noel to tie the score and Holmes allowed a two-run, 10th-inning homer to David Fry for the Guardian’s victory.

Part of the success of relievers is that they are at least a bit of a mystery to hitters, who see them so rarely. But most relievers primarily use just two pitches, so the more you look at it, it becomes demystifying. Josh Naylor, Jose Ramirez (who homered off Weaver in Game 2) and Lane Thomas faced Weaver in each of the first three ALCS games. Weaver got ahead of Thomas 0-2 with two outs in the ninth and couldn’t put him away – Thomas hit a full-count double from the center-field wall. Noel then hit his tying home run.

Since 2019, hitters seeing a reliever for the third time in the postseason have a slashline of .275/.340/.483 with 18 home runs in 426 at-bats (thanks to MLB Network research) – or basically, hitters are being converted into what Fernando Tatis Jr. during the regular season: .276/.340/.492 with 21 home runs in 438 at bats.

The journey we have taken is quite clear. Starters worked 54.7 percent of postseason innings in 2022, 51.9 last year and 49.6 percent so far this year, compared to 58.8 in the regular season. At the end of a long season we now ask more of the boys who have been trained to give less.

Do we see a breaking point?