Cody Snavely
CHICAGO— After their series win on Easter Sunday over the Texas Rangers in Arlington, Texas, Los Angeles Dodgers manager Dave Roberts confirmed that the team would go with a bullpen game on Wednesday against the Chicago Cubs.
The Dodgers have an off-day today, Monday, April 21st, and Thursday, April 24th, and will use both those days to reset their bullpen arms.
In the past few weeks, the Dodgers called upon minor league starters to make spot starts, such as young lefty Justin Wrobleski and right-handers Bobby Miller and Landon Knack, but neither starter gave the team positive results.
So now, the team will opt for a good old-fashioned bullpen game, a step of the organization that used the plan plenty of times last season.
The Dodgers’ pitching staff has been tested early, with injuries to left-handed pitcher Blake Snell, who has missed the last two weeks with shoulder inflammation, and many of the team’s stars who have been unable to give the Dodgers the necessary length.
The Dodgers have also been overly cautious with both of their Japanese starters, Yoshinobu Yamamoto and Roki Sasaki, at the top of the Dodgers’ rotation, keeping them to one start per week.
As Jack Harris of the Los Angeles Times pointed out yesterday, Sunday’s game was the tenth time this season that the Dodgers’ bullpen had to cover more than four innings.
In eight of those ten games, the Dodgers’ bullpen combined for two runs or fewer, and Sunday was the fourth time they didn’t allow any. The Dodgers went 9-1 in those ten games, but it is not a formula for sustained success.
The Dodgers will “piece it together” in Chicago and hope to have their rotation reset when the team returns to Dodger Stadium on Friday for a three-game weekend series against the Pittsburgh Pirates.
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