The Dodgers spent more than $125 million on their bullpen last winter. But when they needed relief late in Game 1 of the National League Division Series on Saturday, they turned to a couple of starters who spent much of the season on the injury list.
And it worked out — though just barely — with Tyler Glasnow and Roki Sasaki combining for eight of the final nine outs in a 5-3 victory over the Philadelphia Phillies.
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Alex Vesia got the other out, retiring pinch-hitter Edmundo Sosa on a fly ball to center with the bases loaded to end the eighth. Sasaki then came on to close it out in the ninth, getting Bryson Stott, representing the tying run, to pop up in foul territory behind third base to end the game.
“What Glas did tonight, it’s not easy to do. And so for him to give us the innings he gave us tonight was huge,” third baseman Max Muncy said.
The four pitchers the Dodgers used all spent time away from the mound this season.
Starter Shohei Ohtani, who didn’t pitch at all last season, didn’t pitch until June and hadn’t thrown past the fifth inning until his final regular-season start. He went six innings against the Phillies, giving up three runs and three hits and striking out nine.
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Glasnow missed more than two months with shoulder inflammation and other issues. Sasaki went to the sideline in early May with a right shoulder impingement and wasn’t reactivated until the final week of the season — as a reliever. Even Vesia missed a couple of weeks with an oblique strain.
But they were all ready for the start of the NDLS. Well, kind of — Glasnow said he was in the bathroom when the call came down for him to start warming up.
“The phone rang and they yelled my name,” he said. “Here we go. It definitely felt weird, but fun. [With the] adrenaline, there’s not as much effort to get the same stuff and [get] warmed up.”
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When Glasnow first began throwing the Dodgers trailed 3-2. But by the time he entered the game they were front 5-3 on Teoscar Hernández’s three-run homer. So his assignment changed from keeping his team close to protecting a lead.
“For them to trust me to go out there and throw some big innings, it was awesome,” Glasnow said.
His first inning, the seventh, went pretty well, with Glasnow setting down the side in order. The first batter, J.T. Realmuto, reached on an error, but he was erased on a double play.
Read more: Hernández: Dodgers save Shohei Ohtani, not the other way around, in monumental Game 1 NLDS win
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The eighth didn’t go as well. Trea Turner walked with one out, and although manager Dave Roberts had Vesia, a left-hander, in the bullpen, the right-handed Glasnow was allowed to face lefty sluggers Kyle Schwarber and Bryce Harper.
He struck out Schwarber on three pitches, but Harper singled to right. So when Alec Bohm walked to load the bases, Roberts finally called in Vesia, who got Sosa to pop out, ending the threat.
“The coaches put the trust in him and he just kept telling me, ‘You’re driving me. Just tell me what to do’,” catcher Will Smith said of guiding Glasnow through his first relief appearance since 2018. “He’s put trust in me and I put trust in him. And it worked out tonight.”
Dodgers pitcher Roki Sasaki celebrates after the final out of a 5-3 win over the Phillies on Saturday. (Robert Gauthier/Los Angeles Times)
It worked out because Sasaki came out of the bullpen throwing gas, topping 99 mph on seven of his 11 pitches, including the final one, which hit 100. Sasaki, who earned the save, also pitched the final inning of the wild-card series against the Cincinnati Reds and has thrown two scoreless innings, striking out three.
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In fact, three pitchers who spent most of the season as starters — Emmet Sheehan, Glasnow and Sasaki — have combined to throw more innings out of the bullpen in the playoffs than the Dodgers’ regular relievers. That wasn’t the way the front office drew it up when they spent wildly on the bullpen over the winter. But it’s working.
“One real strength of this roster is our starting pitching,” Andrew Friedman, the Dodgers’ president of baseball operations, said before the game. “It speaks to that depth. Those guys are really talented.
“And I can see it factoring in and helping us.”
It already has.
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This story originally appeared in Los Angeles Times.
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