LOS ANGELES — The Dodgers might start Yoshinobu Yamamoto in Game 5 of the National League Division Series on Friday.
Even if that happens, he likely won’t be in the game long and the Padres will likely see many of the same relievers they saw in an 8-0 loss on Wednesday in Game 4.
“I’m sure Yoshinobu will be a part of it,” Dodgers manager Dave Roberts said Thursday. “How we will deploy the relievers around it, if that’s the case, I just don’t know.”
Roberts indicated immediately after Wednesday’s game, in which the Dodgers used eight relievers, that they might just go with another bullpen game.
Thursday, he said, “It is an option. … Coming off of what they did last night makes everyone feel pretty confident going into Game 5.”
The Dodgers might have a tough time getting through a longer series with the current state of their starting pitching. But they are deep in high-leverage relievers that could navigate nine innings in a winner-take-all game .
The Padres scored five runs in three innings against Yamamoto in Game 1 and four runs in 5⅓ innings against Jack Flaherty in Game 2.
In the four games so far in the NLDS, the Padres have scored a total of two runs in 20⅓ innings against the eight pitchers who worked Game 4.
In their six playoff games, the Padres have scored 23 runs and hit .363 in 16⅔ innings against starters and scored seven runs and hit .165 in 34⅓ innings against relievers.
“I mean, it’s hit or miss,” Manny Machado said. “We’ve walked off the best closers in the games, right? I mean, it’s just, it’s irrelevant, honestly. It really is. We didn’t hit. We didn’t get runs across the board.”.
It is true the Padres hit relievers slightly better than starters during the regular season, but a team faces bad bullpens quite a bit over the course of 162 games. Not so in the postseason. The Padres postseason opponents, the Braves and Dodgers, had two of the four best bullpens (by ERA) in the major leagues this season.
Xander Bogaerts, who had one of the Padres’ seven hits, was highly complimentary of the Dodgers relievers who pitched last night. But he appeared skeptical of the idea they could pull it off again.
“I mean, it’s pretty tough,” he said. “I feel like all (eight) relievers pitched to weak contact the whole night or pitched to the edges the whole night. Two games in a row, I feel like that’s something hard to do. Sometimes our relievers are lights out for a long period of time, and on one night they can’t get it together. So I feel like they’re gonna leave some over the plate for us.”
The Padres dont’ think they had their typically consistent at-bats, in addition to falling behind early, and those things contibuted to the bullpen game going about as well as it could for the Dodgers. They were able to deploy the right relievers at the right times against the right hitters.
“They executed,” Shildt said. “But you get out of whack, you’re in trouble.”
Freeman works out
Dodgers first baseman Freddie Freeman (ankle) said his inclusion in Wednesday’s lineup was a bit of “gamesmanship” and that he was never intending on starting Game 4.
Freeman was out doing extensive running and drills on the field Thursday, Roberts said Freeman is likely to start Game 5.
“With two days off — he didn’t try to get ready yesterday — he’s feeling better today with treatment,” Roberts said Thursday. “So I just feel like tomorrow he’ll be in there.”
Dodgers secrets
Given the Freeman coyness and no indication who the Dodgers’ Game 5 starter will be, Padres manager Mike Shildt was asked about the gamesmanship.
“Everybody operates their own club the way they operate it,” he said. “We’re more like Vince Lombardi — power sweep, here it is, Yu Darvish is going to start, here’s our lineup. … We just go play. We go execute. There’s no gamesmanship. That’s fine. That’s their prerogative. Here it is. We’re going to show up. We’re going to play. Who’s going to be better? The team that executes.”