If the Dodgers are going to win 13 games in October, they will likely have to master the playbook they ran Wednesday night.
Starting pitchers came out of the bullpen. Another late-inning collapse didn’t cripple their psyche. The offense delivered timely hits when it needed to. And the team grinded out a 5-4 extra-innings win over the Arizona Diamondbacks.
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The story of the night, in an unexpected but entirely warranted late-season plot twist, was Roki Sasaki and Clayton Kershaw throwing scoreless innings of relief for a beleaguered Dodgers bullpen.
The theme, however, was improvisation with the roster and resiliency in the dugout, moving the team within a win of another National League West division championship.
“I know the word resilience gets thrown out a lot, but it was a resilient win and a resilient group,” manager Dave Roberts said. “We fought our tails off until the end. It didn’t look good at different points of the game. But Arizona fought as well. So it was a heck of a ball game … Really good stuff.”
Read more: Dodgers bullpen remains a mess. Can Roki Sasaki’s return provide trustworthy relief?
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The game wasn’t settled until the 11th inning, when Tommy Edman gave the Dodgers a lead with an RBI single and Justin Wrobleski closed out a rare stress-free save.
It never would’ve gotten there, however, without the contributions Sasaki and Kershaw provided out of the bullpen earlier in the evening.
After all the struggles from the Dodgers’ traditional relievers lately, it was the two starting pitchers who helped save the day.
Activated from the injured list shortly before the game, and making his first appearance in the majors since suffering a shoulder injury in early May, Sasaki flashed hugely promising signs with a scoreless frame in the bottom of the seventh — protecting a 3-1 lead the team had been staked to by Blake Snell’s six-inning, one-run start, and an early offensive outburst that included a two-run homer from Andy Pages.
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Sasaki’s fastball averaged 98-99 mph, was located with precision on the corners of the strike zone, and even induced a couple key swing-and-misses, things he never did consistently while posting a 4.72 ERA in eight starts at the beginning of his highly anticipated rookie big-league season.
He paired it with a splitter that was also commanded much better than at any point in his initial MLB stint, when a lack of velocity and inability to attack the strike zone made his trademark pitch an ineffective weapon.
Sasaki needed only 13 pitches to retire the side in order, punctuating his outing with a pair of strikeouts on 99-mph four-seamers. As he walked back to the dugout, he glanced toward his teammates with a stoic glare. Just about all of them, including Shohei Ohtani, applauded in approval.
“One hundred, with a nasty split, OK Roki,” Snell joked afterward. “I think everyone’s going to be so excited for him. And if he can do that, that’s a big help for us. Big boost.”
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As usual, disaster did eventually strike in the eighth, even after the Dodgers (89-69) extended their lead to 4-1 on Teoscar Hernández’s RBI double in the top half of the inning.
The bullpen’s lone season-long stalwart, Alex Vesia, ran into trouble by giving up a single to Ketel Marte, a walk to Geraldo Perdomo, and an RBI double to Corbin Carroll, all with one out.
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Hard-throwing rookie righty Edgardo Henriquez couldn’t put out the fire from there, giving up one run on a swinging bunt from Gabriel Moreno in front of the plate that spun away from catcher Ben Rortvedt, then another when pinch-hitter Adrian Del Castillo stayed alive on a generous two-strike call (which was no doubt impacted by Rortvedt dropping the pitch behind the plate) before lifting a sacrifice fly to center.
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It was the second three-run lead the Dodgers’ bullpen had squandered in as many nights.
It was the latest example of their unreliable relief corps imploding even with ample late-game cushion.
So, to calm the waters, Roberts made another out-of-the-box pitching move with the score still tied at 4-4 in the bottom of the ninth.
In what was his first relief appearance since the infamous fifth game of the 2019 NL Division Series, Kershaw came trotting in from the bullpen and got the game to extras.
“It’s an adrenaline rush, for sure,” said Kershaw, who retired all three batters he faced with the help of a diving catch from Edman in center. “I think relieving is just a different animal altogether. You kind of have to figure out how to maintain your heartbeat and get going. But it is a lot of fun, and it’s fun to have success out there. So fortunate to get through that inning.”
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Kershaw had volunteered to pitch in relief Tuesday night, effectively replacing his between-starts bullpen session ahead of what will be his final career regular-season start Sunday in Seattle.
Come October, however, his best fit on the roster might come in a full-time (and perhaps high-leverage) relief role, thanks to the Dodgers’ abundance of starting pitching options and lack of trustworthy late-game depth.
“I think that right now, you’re betting on people,” Roberts said. “For me, I trust Clayton.”
In extras, the rest of the bullpen finally held up. Blake Treinen inherited a bases-loaded jam with two out in the 10th, but got James McCann to fly out to shallow right field. Wrobleski (another pitcher who began this season as a starter) was handed a save situation in the 11th, after Edman singled home a run with his third hit of the night, and retired the side in order.
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“That was like a playoff game,” Roberts said.
And once the actual postseason begins, it’s the kind of performance the Dodgers will have to replicate again and again.
Read more: Dodgers Dugout: Is this the worst bullpen in L.A. Dodgers history?
Their traditional bullpen, after all, remains a mess. The need for alternatives like Sasaki, Kershaw and Emmet Sheehan (another starting pitcher likely to pitch in relief in the playoffs) has become immense.
It made Wednesday something of a trial run for how this year’s team will need to win games in October. It provided a sense of belief that, despite all of the recent relief problems, they can still piece together ways to mount a World Series defense.
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“We’re kind of at the point of at the point of the season where we’re just doing whatever it takes to win ballgames,” Edman said. “I think that’s what’s great about our squad, is that we have a lot of guys who are no egos and just going to do whatever it takes.”
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This story originally appeared in Los Angeles Times.
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