LOS ANGELES — Shohei Ohtani and Teoscar Hernandez belted two home runs apiece. Blake Snell didn’t allow a run until the seventh inning. The Los Angeles Dodgers were well on their way to the sort of dominant victory that would reaffirm their status as the favorites to repeat as World Series champs.
Then manager Dave Roberts had to go to his ineffective, oft-maligned bullpen.
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Relievers Alex Vesia, Edgardo Henriquez and Jack Dreyer turned a seemingly insurmountable, eight-run lead into a dicey one over the course of a confidence-sapping, 59-pitch top of the eighth inning. Boos rained down from the Dodger Stadium crowd after Dreyer walked in a run, the Reds’ third of the frame, to allow Cincinnati to send the tying run to the on-deck circle.
Dreyer recovered enough to help the Dodgers secure a 10-5 victory Tuesday — but only with some help from the Reds. With the bases loaded and one out, catcher Tyler Stephenson chased multiple pitches out of the strike zone before striking out on a 3-2 slider. Then Cincinnati manager Terry Francona allowed weak-hitting third baseman Ke’Bryan Hayes to bat, and Dreyer induced a pop-up to end the inning.
In the end, the Dodgers won the opening game of their three-game wild-card series against the Reds, but they did nothing to quell concerns that their bullpen could be their undoing. They desperately need to find arms they can trust in high-leverage spots deeper in the playoffs, when games are tighter and opponents are stronger than 83-win Cincinnati.
With Tanner Scott and Blake Treinen floundering late in the season, Vesia had emerged as one of the Dodgers’ few trustworthy late-inning options, but Dodgers manager Dave Roberts admitted postgame that the left-hander “wasn’t sharp tonight.” Nor was Henriquez, who, Roberts said, “didn’t have any command.”
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While Dreyer eventually did his job and stopped Cincinnati’s momentum, it galled Roberts that none of his relievers was aggressive when pitching with a huge lead. Vesia, Henriquez and Dreyer each walked at least one Reds hitter and fell behind in the count against others.
“When you start being too fine and getting behind, you start giving them free bases,” Roberts said. “That’s how you can build big innings and give them momentum. That’s what I saw in that inning.
“If we don’t feel comfortable using certain guys with an eight-run lead, we’ve got to think through some things.”
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The one bit of good news amid the Dodgers’ bullpen struggles came from Blake Treinen. After logging a 9.64 ERA in the month of September, he pitched a scoreless ninth inning Tuesday, striking out two and allowing just one hit.
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Going forward, one option the Dodgers are sure to deploy in these playoffs is utilizing their rotation depth in relief. Starters Emmet Sheehan, Tyler Glasnow and a rejuvenated Roki Sasaki could all pitch out of the bullpen against the Reds. And if the Dodgers advance, Clayton Kershaw could also be an option against Philadelphia in the division series.
Otherwise, the Dodgers will have to hope that their star-studded lineup can carry them and cover for the bullpen like it did Tuesday. And that their vaunted starting pitchers can go deep into games, the way Snell did in Game 1.
Ohtani set the tone before much of a late-arriving Dodgers crowd had finished fighting through Los Angeles traffic. One of baseball’s most prolific sluggers opened the bottom of the first inning with a laser, turning on a 100-mph inside fastball from Reds fireballer Hunter Greene and rocketing a screaming line drive into the right-field bleachers.
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In the sixth inning, with chants of M-V-P raining down from the upper deck, Ohtani struck again. His 454-foot moon shot off Cincinnati reliever Connor Phillips extended the Dodgers’ lead to 8-0 and had Roberts raving after the game about the two-way superstar’s ability to raise his level even higher on the postseason stage.
“His focus gets more keen, and the at-bat quality is better,” Roberts said. “That’s a reason why he signed to be with this ball club, this organization, to play in games like this, to showcase his otherworldly talent. I expect really fun things this postseason out of Shohei.”
That Ohtani struck out in all three of his other at-bats ultimately didn’t matter because the rest of the Dodgers’ lineup provided plenty of support. Hernandez and Tommy Edman ended Greene’s postseason debut early with back-to-back third-inning blasts. Hernandez added another bomb two innings later. Those five home runs equaled the Dodgers’ single-game playoff record.
As good as the offense was, Snell held up his end, too. He surrendered just a single hit in the first six innings, adjusting to Cincinnati’s aggressiveness on his first-pitch fastballs by mixing in more changeups.
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In the bottom of the third, Snell shook his head and gestured at the home-plate umpire after what he thought should have been a called strike three to Stephenson was ruled just low. On the next pitch, he gathered himself and came back with a sharp curveball to induce an inning-ending swing-and-miss.
In 10 prior postseason outings, Snell had never gone more than 5 ⅔ innings. But on Tuesday, he finished the seventh frame, something he considers a key for the Dodgers the rest of October.
“The deeper the starters go into the game,” he said, “one, it means we’re pitching good, and two, we’re giving the bullpen a break.”
Left unsaid by Snell: The fewer innings this flawed Dodgers bullpen throws, the better.
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For seven innings Tuesday, a 93-win Dodgers team that underperformed for stretches of the regular season opened the playoffs looking like the juggernaut they were supposed to be all along. Altogether, it was an ideal start to Los Angeles’ title defense.
Until the Dodgers’ buzzkill of a bullpen sent their fans home feeling uneasy once again.
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