Knowing how to watch the Los Angeles Dodgers’ 8–0 loss at San Diego in Game 4 of the National League Division Series is difficult, even the next morning. Was this a tribute to the power of frustration? The triumph of an efficient system over individual excellence? Plain dumb luck repeated eight times in a row?
Whatever motive you attribute, let alone value, the Dodgers pulled off that rarest of feats on Wednesday night when they evened their series on the strength of an eight-pitcher shutout. Rarer still, only one of those eight, Alex Vescia, faced more than five Padres hitters. Vesia was pulled in the fourth and fifth innings in a 30-pitch marathon that old-timers lamented over the recent death of Luis Tiant, the amazingly eccentric pitcher who threw a 155-pitch complete game in the 1975 World Series. , a few days after pitching three complete game shutouts, all at the age of 34 and celebrating each win with a cigar the length and girth of an adult spaniel. But that was then. This is completely opposite to that.
Wednesday was a day to honor the concept of full employment, as 51 pitchers were used in that day’s four games, including 15 in Detroit’s 3-0 shutout of Cleveland — if you’re keeping score, that is. One fewer pitcher home than a baserunner. The average starter lasted 2 2/3 innings, and that was almost all by design. The Padres probably expected to get more than 10 hitters of work out of ace Dylan Cease, but he was working on short rest and was suddenly shut out by a massive Dodger lineup, as we all know whoever. Not surviving causes destruction for him like Tiant.
I mean, it’s not like pitchers can’t do it when pressed. The point is that they are never suppressed. There is no solution to the pitching problem that analytics experts and the managers under their control believe cannot be addressed with more pitchers, even though with every change in pitching that involves riskier strategies and more risk. It becomes full. Chances are that at least one out of eight is going to be terrible, and then where are you except worse? In that sense, the Dodgers’ all-hands-on-deck shutout last night was a victory against some serious odds.
It wasn’t that long ago that there was a poor employee on every staff who was asked to throw five innings to “save the bullpen.” He is now a prodigal; This year, 113 position players have faced defeat, none of them Shohei Ohtani. It’s the same thing you do these days.
And, in a way, Dodgers manager Dave Roberts did the thing you do when you can’t resort to smart position player pitching — you empty your bullpen and hope for the best. He gathered the teammates before the game and explained how it would work; How they broke the news to Ben Casparius and Edgardo Henriquez that they would not be working on the decks is a mystery for another time.
But there were more tread on tires like 37-year-old Ryan Brasier, and 36-year-old Blake Treinen, and 37-year-old Daniel Hudson, who had pitched a day earlier, as well as Anthony Banda and Michael Kopech (who were older) with the White Sox this year. So many in his time), and the aforementioned Vesia, and projected closer Evan Phillips, and young’un Landon Knack, who closed out games. It was a wall of arms, strategically placed to navigate San Diego’s left-handed hitters, and the Padres couldn’t figure out any of them.
“I think it’s one of the most annoying things,” Padres outfielder Jackson Merrill said afterward. “It brings you back to spring training. You face one guy, and then there’s a new guy every time.” Absolutely true, except that 44,000 people won’t be watching the B-game on the back field on Feb. 27.
Merrill is a rookie, and he’ll learn more annoying things about baseball in the years to come. This was just an annoying Wednesday thing. Conversely, it was also a tactical tour-de-force for Roberts and pitching coach Mark Pryor (yes, that Mark Pryor), who mixed and matched their way through the vaunted Padres lineup. One might say they did it “frantically”, but one cannot plan frantically. It just seems insane when you remember that the Dodgers have used an absurd 40 pitchers to win their 100 games this year, including position players Kike Hernandez and Miguel Rojas. The only team to use more, Miami, was trying to lose offensively, and succeeding beyond their dreams. In fact, he was successful enough to convince manager Skip Shoemaker to use an opt-out clause in his contract to avoid the misery of it all. But that’s for the 2025 MLB Preview, which is coming soon.
The point being made here is that the Dodgers are trying to steal and still steal the World Series with elite hitters and Costco pitchers – good quality, but sold in bulk. In some ways, everybody’s win on Wednesday was the most enduring metaphor of the Dodgers’ season, even more than the Shohei-Muki-Freddy-Teoskar show, the perfect balance of Tiffany and Kirkland signatures.
And yet there is more, or at least there could be. The Dodger rotation is still middling, and Roberts may have to bullpen Game 5 tomorrow night as well. Their starting options are Yoshinobu Yamamoto and Jack Flaherty, but Yamamoto took a loss in Game 1 and Flaherty struggled in Game 2, and neither is a picture of health at the moment. In other words, the 2014 Clayton Kershaw is not coming through that door. But apparently everyone else is.