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    • Bullpen Game 5 Magic vs. Mets in NLCS?
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    Bullpen Game 5 Magic vs. Mets in NLCS?

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    LOS ANGELES – The Los Angeles Dodgers know it’s unconventional.

    It can look a bit ridiculous sometimes.

    A team with a payroll of more than $300 million that dropped $1.4 billion in free agents last winter shouldn’t have to rely on bullpen play to keep its season alive.

    Yet here they are, for the third time this postseason, using a bullpen matchup in Game 6 against the New York Mets at Dodger Stadium on Sunday night.

    Ryan Brasier, who last threw even two innings in a game on August 23, 2023, is expected to start again.

    They’ll then bring in six, maybe seven, more relievers to get the job done.

    It worked beautifully in the NL Division Series against the San Diego Padres, with an 8-0 victory in Game 4.

    It blew up spectacularly in Game 2 of the National League Championship Series, losing 7-3.

    They are now looking for those bullpen arms to propel them to their fourth World Series in eight years.

    The Dodgers, up from three games to two in this best-of-seven series, are confident it will work. None of their high-leverage relievers have pitched since Game 4, unlike the Mets, who used their best two relievers – Ryne Stanek and Edwin Diaz – to secure the final 13 outs in their 12-6 win in Game 5 .

    “It’s all hands on deck,” Dodgers manager Dave Roberts said, “and that’s how I’ll look at it. And with the pen, you can only push each guy so much. So it kind of just depends on where they where they are in terms of type of hitter, number of pitches, all that kind of stuff…

    “I feel like since our focus is still on Game 6, whatever it takes, we are very well equipped to prevent runs for a potential two games.”

    The Mets desperately need their ace, Sean Manaea, to dive deep into the game and force a Game 7, knowing they can’t go mano-a-mano with the Dodgers’ vaunted bullpen.

    “I’m just giving it everything I’ve got,” Manaea said. “I hope I can dive deep into the game. It’s always the goal for me personally. I’m not trying to change anything or do anything more. Whatever I do.” can give, that’s what I can do.”

    If there is a Game 7, the Dodgers will take the traditional approach with starter Walker Buehler, who pitched four shutout innings in Game 3 – celebrating his effort as if he were Bob Gibson or Jack Morris.

    There still hasn’t been a single full game played this postseason. Only Corbin Burnes of the Baltimore Orioles pitched in the eighth inning. Seven pitchers completed seven innings. And twelve times, starters lasted two or fewer innings.

    It’s become such a bizarre bullpen world that relievers have thrown more innings this postseason (312) than starters (303 ⅓).

    “That’s where we are in the game right now with analytics and everything,” Mets All-Star first baseman Pete Alonso said. “The game is just different. It’s a completely different outlook. Now everyone wants to throw their best stuff all the time.” There is no taking away a throw. This is high-octane baseball, maximum effort on every pitch.”

    If it didn’t work, teams wouldn’t keep doing it. The Dodgers bullpen recorded 28 putouts in Games 3 and 4 of the NLCS and did not give up a single run.

    “I’ve always felt like a bullpen game gives you a really good opportunity to prevent runs,” Roberts said.

    Of course it can be counterproductive. According to the New York Post, there have been 15 saves this postseason, the most outside of the Covid year of 2020 in baseball history. Cleveland Guardians closer Emmanuel Clase, the best reliever in baseball, gave up just five earned runs and two home runs in 74 ⅓ innings with an ERA of 0.64 during the regular season. In this postseason, he had given up eight earned runs and three homeruns in seven innings at the start of Saturday.

    The Mets are doing their best and praying the heavy workload doesn’t lead to a meltdown. Stanek pitched a career-high 2 ⅓ innings and Diaz pitched two innings in Game 5, with Mets manager Carlos Mendoza not trusting anyone else to protect a five-run lead.

    “I think the one thing we’ve seen this year is guys getting tired,” Mendoza said. “So the importance of starting pitching is there. You need guys to give you length. It’s hard to ask guys every day.” for 15, 16 zeros. That’s difficult. And that is the importance of starting to pitch.

    “Many different teams are built in many different ways. We have a number of starters. But there are also teams with some elite bullpen arms.”

    Roberts has managed his bullpen judiciously, using his high-leverage arms only at critical times and leaving other relievers with the burden of eating up innings when the team is down.

    “We’ve got potentially two games here,” Roberts said, “and I think we’re in a very good place to prevent runs. I don’t think we’ve completely exposed our highly indebted guys. And that’s part of it. of the learning curve for me about history.”

    If the Dodgers win Game 6, they can advance to the World Series, which would start Friday night at Dodger Stadium. They will have starters Yoshinobu Yamamoto, Jack Flaherty and Walker Buehler all rested. Their bullpen gets four full days off. They have All-Star first baseman Freddie Freeman, who is 1-for-15 without an extra base hit this postseason and still receiving four days of treatment for his sprained ankle.

    At some point, can the bullpen actually decide a late-innings game? Three games have been decided by eight or more points, four games have been decided by at least six points, and no team has had a lead of less than four points going into the ninth.

    According to the Athletic, the only time six games in a postseason series were decided by four or more runs was the 1965 World Series between the Dodgers and Minnesota Twins, with an average margin of victory of seven runs.

    “That’s one of the things I’ve learned about postseason baseball,” Dodgers reliever Brent Honeywell said. “When you have the lead, you don’t want to give it up. You’ll do everything you can to keep it, and you’ll soon find out who’s ready to step up in the postseason.”

    This is why Roberts won’t hesitate to deploy his high-leverage relievers early in games, with part-time closer Michael Kopech coming in between the third and eighth innings so far in postseason games.

    “I think baseball managers are more aggressive once they get a lead and go with those (high-leverage) guys,” Roberts said. “It’s just hard to get back into a game or tack on. When you see other players arms, I think it just exposes the pins of other teams, and I think we did a really good job.”

    Sure, if Roberts had his druthers, he’d have Clayton Kershaw, Tyler Glasnow, Dustin May, Tony Gonsolin and/or Gavin Stone in the mix with Yamamoto, Flaherty and Buehler.

    “I’d like to see John Smoltz or Greg Maddux record seven shutouts (innings),” Roberts said, “or throw a one-hitter or two-hitter in a World Series game. That would be great.”

    Instead, it’s mixing and matching, strategizing and praying you have the right matchups.

    It’s the nature of the postseason beast in 2024.

    “It’s just where the game plays these days,” Alonso said. “What are you going to do?”

    Follow Nightengale on X: @Bnightengale

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