The Los Angeles Dodgers and Atlanta Braves cruised through the first two rounds of Major League Baseball’s 2020 postseason like high-speed trains on a collision course, both posting spotless 5-0 records and plus-19 run differentials. Their paths to the National League Championship Series, which starts Monday night at Globe Life Field in Arlington, Tex., were so smooth, neither team required a fourth starter, and they seldom asked for significant outs from anyone but their most trusted relievers.
But the grueling, unprecedented schedule of this year’s league championship series, featuring as many as seven games without any days off, suggests this matchup of the Nos. 1 and 2 seeds in the NL bracket could be different — potentially a test of pitching depth the likes of which baseball’s postseason has never witnessed.
At the very least, both the Braves and Dodgers will have to identify a Game 4 starter for the first time, with neither team possessing an obvious choice. And if the series goes deep, its outcome — and the accompanying berth in the World Series — could be decided largely by the decisions regarding and performances by the back halves of the teams’ pitching staffs.
The combinations for piecing together 27 outs each night will be endless, the stakes massive.
“You’re worried about 27 outs every night, and how can you get those outs,” Braves General Manager Alex Anthopoulos said Sunday.
The Dodgers were baseball’s best team in the pandemic-shortened, 60-game regular season, with a 43-17 record that extrapolates to 116 wins over a 162-game season. They were the first team since the 1927 New York Yankees to post both an ERA+ and an OPS+ of at least 120 (figures that indicate both the Dodgers’ offense and pitching staff were at least 20 percent better than league average).
The Braves, who won their third straight NL East title this season, had the majors’ best offense, as measured by on-base-plus-slugging percentage (.832), but it was their pitching staff that has carried them so far, spinning four shutouts in the team’s first five games, the first team to pull that off in the postseason since the 1905 New York Giants. Their starting rotation was a weak spot during the regular season, posting a 5.51 ERA, but in the postseason Max Fried, Ian Anderson and Kyle Wright have combined to post a 1.26 ERA.
“They just do a great job preventing runs. They’ve done it better than anybody this postseason,” Dodgers Manager Dave Roberts said of the Braves. “We’ve got our work cut out for us.”
The Dodgers are seeking their first World Series title since 1988; the Braves their first since 1995. The Dodgers have won eight straight NL West titles, but their past seven trips to the postseason all ended in losses, their title hopes vanquished by (in chronological order) the St. Louis Cardinals, the Cardinals again, the New York Mets, Chicago Cubs, Houston Astros, Boston Red Sox and Washington Nationals.
The Braves would like to be the eighth team on that list — and erase their own recent history of postseason failures in the process. The Braves had lost 10 straight postseason series dating to 2001 before beating the Cincinnati Reds in the best-of-three first round this year.
Only the first two pitching matchups for the NLCS are known: the Dodgers’ Walker Buehler vs. the Braves’ Fried in Game 1, and Clayton Kershaw against Anderson in Game 2. The Braves will start Wright in Game 3 against a Dodgers pitcher to be named later. (In Game 3 of the division series, the ball was handed to Dustin May, but he was merely an opener, removed after one inning.)
By Game 4 of the NLCS, both teams will be required to tap into their depth. The Braves could turn to 22-year-old Bryse Wilson, 22-year-old Huascar Ynoa or veteran Josh Tomlin to start, or they could try a straight bullpen game. The Dodgers could give the ball to May (assuming he doesn’t start Game 3), lefty Julio Urías or Tony Gonsolin, who hasn’t pitched since Sept. 26. The choices will depend largely on whether and to what extent those pitchers are used in the first three games. Multiple starters could be used in piggyback tandem. There could be openers or bullpen games.
“I like the fact it makes teams have to utilize their whole roster,” Dodgers third baseman Justin Turner said of the format. “You can’t just get through a postseason series with three starting pitchers. I love that about it. It really exposes the depth of teams, and we feel like we have a lot of depth, so it benefits us.”
A potential Game 5, 6 and/or 7 would each present another round of difficult choices, including whether to bring back starters on short rest — particularly for the Braves, who will be starting rookies Anderson and Wright in Games 2 and 3.
“You have to see how you get there before making that determination,” Braves Manager Brian Snitker said in regards to pitching his young starters on short rest. “You have to let the temperature of the game dictate the next move.”
Given the premium placed on pitching depth, both teams could also come to regret who they are missing. The Dodgers parted ways with Hyun-Jin Ryu, Kenta Maeda and Rich Hill over the winter, and they saw lefty David Price opt out of the season over novel coronavirus concerns. The Braves expected to have veterans Felix Hernandez and Cole Hamels and 2019 ace Mike Soroka at their disposal, but Hernandez opted out and Hamels and Soroka were injured.
The Dodgers, however, have an additional, pressing issue at the back of their bullpen, where Kenley Jansen, their longtime closer, has lost that job following a series of shaky outings marked by diminished velocity.
And there isn’t an obvious candidate to replace Jansen in the ninth inning. Urías would be an option, but he is likely to be needed as a starter, opener or midgame “bulk” pitcher. Brusdar Graterol has a devastating fastball, but his low strikeout rate (6.3 per nine innings over his career) is less than ideal for a closer. Veteran Blake Treinen has experience closing but is prone to bouts of wildness.
Roberts said Sunday the Dodgers are considering adding a 15th pitcher to their 28-man roster for the NLCS because of the grueling schedule. As a point of comparison, when the Dodgers’ current run of playoff appearances began in 2013, they used just 10 pitchers in each of their two series.
When they take the field Monday night, the Braves and Dodgers will be seeing each other for the first time this year — the first time that can be said of NLCS opponents — owing to the regionalized schedule utilized by MLB.
And there will be one other novelty scattered around the stands at Globe Life Field: paying fans. The NLCS will mark the first games all season with fans allowed in, with attendance capped at around 11,500 and socially distanced in “pods” of four seats.
“It’ll be exciting,” Turner said of hearing the roar of a crowd for the first time in 2020. “It’s probably going to feel like a sold-out crowd.”