Los Angeles won 100 games, holds the No. 2 seed in the National League and has a rotation that reads like an All-Star ballot. What it does not have, as of Thursday, is a decision about who starts Game 1.
Dave Roberts is in no rush. “We don’t need to make a decision right now, so really just trying to be clear and talk through it,” he said.
He has a reason to wait. The Dodgers do not know their opponent yet. Atlanta and Philadelphia play a winner-take-all Game 3 on Thursday night, and the loser goes home.
The Four Names
Yoshinobu Yamamoto, Tarik Skubal, Blake Snell and Tyler Glasnow. That is the four-man playoff rotation.
Skubal is the one that still startles people. The Dodgers acquired him from Detroit at the August trade deadline in the biggest move of the deadline cycle, adding a reigning ace to a staff that already had three.
Any of those four would start Game 1 for most teams in this bracket. Roberts gets to sequence them based on matchup, rest and whoever walks out of Truist Park alive.
The Bullpen Picture Is Messier
Edwin Diaz is back from a neck injury and has been sharp, throwing five scoreless innings with nine strikeouts across five appearances since coming off the injured list.
He is also no longer the primary closer for this postseason, which is a notable demotion for a pitcher with his résumé.
General manager Brandon Gomes framed the recovery positively. “Felt like each outing was more and more sharp, and looking more like himself,” he said.
Edgardo Henriquez missed the final two weeks of the regular season with lower-back discomfort and is trending toward availability. Gomes: “His last live BP went well, he’s responding positively after he throws and isn’t feeling any lingering discomfort.”
Why Waiting Is Smart, Not Indecisive
There is a lazy criticism available here about a manager who cannot make up his mind. It does not survive contact with the situation.
Atlanta and Philadelphia are very different opponents. One is a left-handed-heavy lineup built around Kyle Schwarber and Bryce Harper. The other is a team starting a reliever in an elimination game because its rotation has been destroyed by elbow injuries.
Setting your rotation before you know which of those you face is throwing away the one advantage of having four interchangeable aces.
The Layoff Is the Actual Risk
The thing that should worry Los Angeles is the same thing that should worry Milwaukee. Both top seeds have been sitting while the wild card teams played competitive baseball.
October has not been kind to rested top seeds in recent years. Timing at the plate is the first thing to go, and no amount of simulated at-bats replicates a playoff pitcher throwing a slider with the season on the line.
The Dodgers have the best collection of starting pitching in the field and the deepest lineup. They also have five days off and an opponent arriving with momentum, whoever it turns out to be.
What This Series Should Look Like
If Philadelphia wins Thursday, the Dodgers face a team that just took two of three from a 94-win division champion on the road. If Atlanta wins, they face a team held together by openers and bullpen games.
Either way Los Angeles is the favorite, and should be. A 100-win team with Yamamoto, Skubal, Snell and Glasnow does not lose a best-of-five often.
Roberts has earned the right to pick his order late. He has also been here before with a loaded roster and watched it end early. The rotation is not the thing that will decide this series. Five days of rust might be.
A longtime sports reporter, Carlos Garcia has written about some of the biggest and most notable athletic events of the last 5 years. He has been credentialed to cover MLS, NBA and MLB games all over the United States. His work has been published on Fox Sports, Bleacher Report, AOL and the Washington Post.
