During the San Francisco Giants’ run to a World Series championship in 2014, their ace left-hander Madison Bumgarner made six starts. He went at least seven innings each time, pitched into the eighth inning twice, threw two complete game shutouts – and came out of the bullpen for five scoreless innings in Game 7 of the World Series.
It seems like a different generation.
There were 41 postseason games last October. Starting pitchers averaged just under 4⅔ innings per start. Only 16 times did a starting pitcher pitch into the seventh inning. Only seven times did a starter complete seven innings. None went any farther and none of those who completed seven innings did it more than once.
Just two games into this year’s postseason, the Detroit Tigers went with a ‘bullpen game’ – and beat the Houston Astros, to advance to the next round.
As the Dodgers start their postseason run with starting pitching their most obvious weakness, postseason baseball has evolved to make starting pitching less important than it has ever been in October.
“It certainly has (changed),” Dodgers manager Dave Roberts said. “I think that it’s just kind of the way life in baseball is now. And I know that there’s talk about trying to get it back to starters going deeper. But I think from people that are in the game, as far as managers and front office and things like that, you’re just trying to figure out the best way to prevent runs and get 27 outs.
“There’s just certainly no right or wrong way, and you have to weigh in the options of what you have as far as starters.”
A year ago, the Dodgers didn’t have much. Clayton Kershaw – compromised by a shoulder injury that would require surgery – rookie Bobby Miller and homer-prone Lance Lynn combined to record a total of 14 outs while allowing 13 runs in the three-game National League Division Series sweep by the Arizona Diamondbacks. According to Elias Sports, the 4⅔ combined innings from the Dodgers’ starters were the fewest by the starting pitchers in the first three games of a postseason series in MLB history.
The bar having been set so low, the Dodgers’ group of starters this October – Jack Flaherty (Game 1), Yoshinobu Yamamoto (Game 2), Walker Buehler and rookie Landon Knack (in some capacity) – has its limitations but offers the hope of better contributions.
“Sign me up. That would be great,” Roberts said of the potential for a six-inning start from any of those pitchers. “I think any manager would say if I could get six from a starter and be in a position to win the game, they would bank it.
“Every team would love to have four guys that, every single night, you’re gonna bank six innings and the pitch count is gonna be fine and you’re in a position to win a ball game and go to three guys (out of the bullpen). But that’s just not reality for a lot of clubs.”
Dodgers general manager Brandon Gomes is even less demanding. He would be happy with five innings from the Dodgers’ starters.
“Very happy – because I think our bullpen is very deep,” Gomes said. “Our bullpen feels like it is built more for the postseason than the regular season. I think we have a lot of guys with experience that are one-inning guys instead of the versatility where we can do a bunch of things (of past postseasons).”
Gomes is referring primarily to the group of Daniel Hudson, Blake Treinen, Evan Phillips and Michael Kopech, on whom the Dodgers will rely heavily in the postseason with Joe Kelly and left-handers Alex Vesia and Anthony Banda.
“Obviously the blueprint is to have some horses – one or two or three guys – and then bring in the bullpen to do some things,” Dodgers pitching coach Mark Prior said. “That’s probably not going to be the case with us. So it’s going to have to be a collective group.
“Most of the time our bullpen has stepped up. The hard part is to be able to do that repetitively, not overexposing guys to certain parts of the lineup. Obviously there’s a workload component to it as well. Doing it one game followed by a starter who might go six or seven with two or three relievers sprinkled in is different than having to run a bullpen game and a bullpen game. Clearly it’s stating the obvious, but our starters have not been getting deep into games. That’s not by design. That’s usually been done by performance, having situations dictated – like with Yama, trying to work his way back.”
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Two things do not bode well for the Dodgers’ bullpen. They do not induce a lot of swing-and-miss – their 8.69 strikeouts per nine innings ranked 21st in MLB during the regular season. And, they gave up a lot of home runs – 78, the eighth-most in MLB – though a lot of those were given up by pitchers who won’t be taking the mound for them in October.
“I don’t think so. Clearly I’m biased,” Prior said of the diminished importance of starting pitching in the postseason – he went seven innings or more in each of his three postseason starts with the Chicago Cubs in 2003.
“I think starting pitching is always important because one guy can impact the game so much. If you get a guy who can run through five, six and it’d be great if he can get into the seventh inning, I think that has a compounding effect as you get later into the series as much as it does in that specific Game 1 or Game 2. It’s the ability to save your bullpen, keep them fresh. We have found in situations where, say, maybe you’re running four or five guys out there. Maybe there’s success in Game 1 and Game 2 but then in Game 3, 4 and 5, Manny Machado (as an example) who’s already seen us a ton over the course of a season … you can only attack him so many different ways. You can change the sequence up, but the stuff is the same. He’s seen it a lot. That’s where I think you start wondering where does the advantage flip to the hitter.
“I think starters are still extremely important.”
