Imagine if the Dodgers hadn’t scored a gazillion runs.
Shudder.
Imagine how the majority of spectators would have tensed up when manager Dave Roberts trudged to the mound to remove Alex Vesia if the game was actually close.
Hoo-boy.
Imagine the devastation the Dodgers would have experienced if Jack Dreyer’s bases-loaded walk legitimately endangered their chances of winning.
Read more: Plaschke: Dodgers flatten overmatched Reds in unwanted first round. But about that bullpen…
Barf.
The postseason started for the Dodgers on Tuesday night, and their pumpkin of a bullpen didn’t magically transform into an elegant carriage in a 10-5 victory over the Cincinnati Reds in Game 1 of their National League wild-card series.
On a night when the hitters crushed five home runs and starter Blake Snell completed seven innings, the relievers continued to be as terrible as they were over the last three months of the regular season.
The Dodgers technically moved a win closer to defending their World Series title, but that ultimate goal suddenly looked further out of reach because of a shocking 30-minute top of the eighth inning in which three of their arsonist relievers nearly created a save situation out of an eight-run game.
Can a team possibly win a World Series with such an unreliable bullpen?
Dodgers reliever Alex Vesia reacts during the eighth inning of a 10-5 win over the Cincinnati Reds in Game 1 of a National League wild-card series on Tuesday night at Dodger Stadium. (Robert Gauthier / Los Angeles Times)
Before the game, president of baseball operations Andrew Friedman said he thought so.
“It’s not a talent issue,” Friedman said, but who knows if this was an honest assessment or a disingenuous effort to convince his audience that he hadn’t wasted tens of millions of dollars on a bunch of no-chancers.
Friedman continued, “We’ve seen it time and time again with guys who have scuffled and all of a sudden found it and they roll off a heater.”
That’s not what happened in Game 1.
If anything, the troublesome eighth inning eliminated certain relievers from consideration to pitch in in the highest-leverage of situations.
Suspicions about rookie fireballer Edgardo Henriquez were confirmed, as Henriquez walked a batter to load the bases, walked in a run and gave up a run-scoring single.
The wishful thinking that Dreyer could be a late-inning option was dented, as Dreyer entered the game and walked in another run.
Most disconcerting was the performance of Vesia, the team’s most trusted reliever.
Vesia started the inning, with the Dodgers leading, 10-2. The use of Vesia in such a lopsided game spoke to how little Roberts wanted to use any of his other relievers in a game of this magnitude, but the fiery left-hander looked like a rubber band that had been stretched out too many times. Vesia, who pitched a career-high 68 games in the regular season, retired only one batter. He gave up a hit and a walk.
So what now?
Roberts sounded as if the only relievers he trusted were his starters. He said Tyler Glasnow and Emmet Sheehan would be in the bullpen for Game 2.
Glasnow was last used as a reliever in 2018. He’s never pitched out of the bullpen in the postseason.
Sheehan has pitched in relief in only five of 28 career games. He has only one career save, and that was in a four-inning appearance in a blowout.
The Dodgers have contemplated deploying Shohei Ohtani out of the bullpen. They could also have other starting pitchers such as Yoshinobu Yamamoto and Snell pitch in relief instead of throwing scheduled bullpen sessions between starts.
The team’s highest-ceiling late-inning option could be Roki Sasaki, who struck out two batters in each of the two one-inning appearances he made in the final week of the regular season.
Read more: Dodgers open playoffs with displays of dominance and disorder in win over Reds
But outside of Ohtani, who closed out the championship game of the most recent World Baseball Classic, can any of these starters really be counted on to perform in unfamiliar roles?
Will Yamamoto and Snell really be unaffected in their starts if they also pitch in relief?
It’s unclear.
But what is clear is the Dodgers can’t wait around for the likes of Tanner Scott or Blake Treinen or anyone pitched in the eighth inning on Tuesday to magically round into form as Friedman envisions. They have to try something new.
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This story originally appeared in Los Angeles Times.
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