Was Edgardo Henriquez the most suitable choice to pitch to Vladimir Guerrero Jr. within the seventh inning with two outs and runners on the corners?
Possibly, possibly not.
And that was the issue.
The issue was that Dodgers supervisor Dave Roberts didn’t have a selection that was clearly higher than to put the sport within the fingers of a hard-throwing however unreliable 23-year-old rookie.
Henriquez walked Guerrero on a 99.9-mph fastball that sailed into the other batter’s field, evading the grasp of catcher Will Smith and permitting Addison Barger to attain.
A manageable two-run deficit was now three and about to change into 4.
The Dodgers had been on their option to a 6-1 loss to the Toronto Blue Jays on Wednesday evening, the Recreation 5 consequence inserting them at a three-games-to-two deficit on this World Collection.
For Roberts, that seventh inning didn’t characterize a supervisor’s nightmare. That was a supervisor’s evening terror.
What else may Roberts do?
Keep on with beginning pitcher Blake Snell? Snell had already pitched to Guerrero 3 times and his pitch depend was at 116.
Use nearer Roki Sasaki as a fireman? He’s their solely reliable reliever and Roberts wasn’t about to make use of him in a non-elimination recreation during which his group was down.
Flip to final 12 months’s postseason hero Blake …? By no means thoughts, that query isn’t even value being requested in its entirety.
“It’s hard because you can only push a starter so much,” Roberts mentioned. “I thought Blake emptied the tank.”
The Dodgers one way or the other hid their piñata of a bullpen within the three earlier rounds of the postseason, however that bullpen is now catching up with them.
Reversing their collection deficit will virtually definitely require a few of their starters to pitch in unfamiliar roles over the subsequent two video games, together with Shohei Ohtani as an opener on three days’ relaxation in a possible Recreation 7.
Snell figures to be a candidate to additionally pitch in Recreation 7, maybe as a center reliever. Tyler Glasnow is predicted to be accessible out of the bullpen in a minimum of one of many two remaining video games.
In addition to Sasaki, the relievers can’t be trusted.
In every of the group’s three losses on this collection, the video games turned when the beginning pitcher was eliminated with males on base. In all three cases, the bullpen made a multitude of the sport, permitting the inherited runners to attain.
“You look at the three games that we lost, it spiraled on us with guys on base,” Roberts mentioned. “Guys got to be better.”
They will’t.
This actuality makes the bullpen’s heroic efficiency within the 18-inning victory in Recreation 3 all of the extra miraculous. The Dodgers are lucky this collection isn’t already over.
The development of this explicit bullpen needs to be one of many biggest front-office blunders in franchise historical past, because it may price the group a World Collection in a season during which it has Ohtani, Freddie Freeman and a billion-dollar rotation.
How did this occur?
Begin with Tanner Scott and Kirby Yates. The Dodgers dedicated a mixed $85 million to the 2 relievers and neither of them is even on the roster.
Have a look at the injured checklist. Brusdar Graterol missed the whole season with shoulder issues. Evan Phillips underwent Tommy John surgical procedure.
Lastly, study what the Dodgers didn’t do on the commerce deadline. Everybody — and by everybody, I imply everybody besides Andrew Friedman’s entrance workplace — knew they had been in determined want of bullpen assist. Relying on some inner options figuring out, the one reliever they acquired was Brock Stewart. The notoriously brittle Stewart went down with a shoulder damage and didn’t pitch within the postseason.
What the Dodgers did was the baseball equal of constructing a panoramic mansion however forgetting to put in any bogs.
Now, the whole residence stinks, the Dodgers one loss away from dropping a World Collection that needs to be theirs.
