{"id":920433,"date":"2026-10-04T15:36:13","date_gmt":"2026-10-04T15:36:13","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/920433\/"},"modified":"2026-10-04T15:36:13","modified_gmt":"2026-10-04T15:36:13","slug":"dodgers-rotation-affords-them-to-be-audacious-with-playoff-plan","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/920433\/","title":{"rendered":"Dodgers’ rotation affords them to be audacious with playoff plan"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

The Dodgers<\/a> are better than you. They\u2019re smarter than you. They\u2019re richer and deeper and more popular than you. You know it, they know it, there\u2019s no point pretending otherwise.<\/p>\n

So, yes, they went into the National League Divisional Series<\/a> looking past the threadbare Atlanta Braves and thinking about the National League Championship Series.<\/p>\n

Who does that? In the playoffs?<\/p>\n

Your two-time World Series champions with the world\u2019s best starting pitching rotation and a 1-0 NLDS series lead, that\u2019s who.<\/p>\n

The way the Dodgers did the math, it made sense to save their ace of aces, Yoshinobu Yamamoto<\/a> \u2014 who last postseason went 5-1, had an ERA of 1.45 and 33 strikeouts in six appearances and won the World Series MVP \u2014 for Game 3 of the NLDS.<\/p>\n

Not for the tone-setting Game 1 and, potentially, Game 5 on regular rest.<\/p>\n

But Game 3.<\/p>\n

Because to the Dodgers, that\u2019s not even much of a calculated risk. It was a math problem specific to them, before they beat the Atlanta Braves 5-3<\/a> in Game 1 in 100-degree heat Saturday afternoon.<\/p>\n

They figured they\u2019d be able to throw two consecutive left-handers at the lefty-averse Braves lineup, starting Saturday with recently acquired two-time Cy Young winner Tarik Skubal<\/a>, followed Sunday by Blake Snell<\/a>, also a two-time Cy Young winner.<\/p>\n

Additionally, this way they could have Yamamoto pitch Tuesday on the road, where his ERA is 1.77 instead of at home, where it\u2019s 3.13. And where he\u2019s given up 14 home runs compared with six on the road, where he\u2019s made four fewer starts.<\/p>\n

But mostly the Dodgers\u2019 calculus was that having Yamamoto pitch Game 3 means it will line up so that they\u2019ll have him for Game 2 in the NLCS and, if necessary, Game 6 against the Milwaukee Brewers or San Diego Padres. (Or, if you really want to plan ahead \u2014 and the Dodgers with their leaky bullpen absolutely should not \u2014 for Game 1 of the World Series.)<\/p>\n

\"\" <\/p>\n

\u201cThat just sets up the rotation and Yamamoto better looking forward,\u201d Dodgers manager Dave Roberts<\/a> explained before Saturday\u2019s game.<\/p>\n

\u201cNot discounting this series, because you\u2019ve got to win this series first, but you start from the fact that they\u2019re all going to pitch \u2014 the three [Skubal, Snell and Yamamoto] are going to pitch for sure … and then what sets them up going forward.\u201d<\/p>\n

It feels like a faux pas, to be that forward-thinking, and to be saying the quiet part out loud!<\/p>\n

\u201cIf you can kind of line it up in such a way to give guys ample rest, it puts you in a better position for more options down the road,\u201d Roberts said. \u201cThat\u2019s kind of some of the math we had.\u201d<\/p>\n

I mean, it adds up. And for these Dodgers \u2014 whose fourth starter, Tyler Glasnow, was a key cog in last year\u2019s World Series-winning rotation \u2014 it\u2019s a fair assessment.<\/p>\n

Though it\u2019s nice of Roberts to pay enough lip service that he\u2019s not totally discounting the best-of-five current series they\u2019re in.<\/p>\n

Predictably on Saturday, Skubal, who previously had a 2.04 ERA, a 0.73 WHIP and 56 strikeouts in 39\u2154 playoff innings for the Detroit Tigers, brought his own October heat.<\/p>\n

The 29-year-old from Kingman, Ariz., gave up just one run and two hits, walked two and struck out seven \u2014 giving him 64 in the postseason, the second most in his first seven postseason appearances behind only Bob Gibson (74), per MLB\u2019s Sarah Langs.<\/p>\n

Skubal retired 15 consecutive, hit 101 on the radar gun in the second inning and didn\u2019t have a three-ball count until the fifth inning.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe knew,\u201d Braves manager Walt Weiss said, \u201cit was going to be a rough ride.\u201d<\/p>\n

But Weiss did not know, immediately after Saturday\u2019s loss, when he\u2019d be able to deploy his sole ace, 37-year-old Chris Sale, the 10-time All-Star who just pitched in the Braves\u2019 Game 3 wild-card closeout.<\/p>\n

\u201cTo me it\u2019s not that big a deal when he pitches,\u201d Weiss said. \u201cThe Dodgers can\u2019t win it in two.\u201d<\/p>\n

A true statement and a matter of fact: The Dodgers can\u2019t win in two, but they\u2019re not shy about expecting to win.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s prudent to kind of map out potentially how they could line up,\u201d Roberts said Friday. \u201cAnd that\u2019s just doing your due diligence.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe are very fortunate because we have four guys essentially that you could really kind of pick through to figure out what\u2019s the best way to deploy all four starters, that\u2019s the exercise. But it starts with having four talented guys.\u201d<\/p>\n

Andrew Friedman, the Dodgers\u2019 president of baseball operations, reveled in the notion that his club might actually be disproving the rule that you can never have enough pitching \u2014 at least when it comes to their elite quartet of starters.<\/p>\n

And that, Friedman said, \u201cis very impactful for quality of life.\u201d<\/p>\n

And the Dodgers aren\u2019t afraid to say it.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The Dodgers are better than you. They\u2019re smarter than you. They\u2019re richer and deeper and more popular than…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":920434,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[435],"tags":[21635,49,48,511,15232,316947,1112,49360,462,42368,29607,106395,19685,135463,82,2535,3275,316948,1507],"class_list":["post-920433","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-mlb","tag-ace","tag-ca","tag-canada","tag-dodgers","tag-era","tag-fourth-starter","tag-game","tag-math","tag-mlb","tag-road","tag-roberts","tag-rotation","tag-saturday","tag-skubal","tag-sports","tag-way","tag-world","tag-yamamoto-pitch-tuesday","tag-yoshinobu-yamamoto"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/920433","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=920433"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/920433\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/920434"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=920433"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=920433"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=920433"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}