Dodgers Opinion: This stat could sink the Dodgers for good in 2025

LOS ANGELES — You saw what happened as well as I. The Dodgers won an epic marathon in Game Three, and then proceeded to deliver two epic duds in Games Four and Five to put them in a deep hole as the series moves back to Toronto. But how did we get in this position? And how do we get out of it? Yes, the offense has been terrible, but there might be an even bigger culprit: the inability of the bullpen to pick up their starters and strand runners on base. Let me show you what I mean:

Let’s look back at the three games the Dodgers have lost:

• Game 1: Blake Snell exits a 2-2 ballgame with the bases loaded in the bottom of the sixth. All runners score and the inning spirals out of control. 3 INHERITED RUNNERS SCORE.
• Game 4: Shohei Ohtani is trailing 2-1 when he walks off the mound in the top of the seventh with two men on base. By the time Anthony Banda is done with the inning, it’s 6-1 and the game is out of reach. 2 INHERITED RUNNERS SCORE.
• Game 5: With two outs and runners on second and third in the bottom of the seventh, Blake Snell once again hands the ball to Dave Roberts with a game within reach: a 3-1 score. A couple pitches later Edgardo Henriquez wild pitches a run home, and then Dante Bichette delivers an opposite field single to score Snell’s other runner. 2 INHERITED RUNNERS SCORE.

Now let’s compare that hot mess with what happened in the two Dodger victories in this series:

• Game 2: After a leadoff homer, Yoshinobu Yamamoto delivers nearly perfect start, a nine-inning complete game. Obviously, NO INHERITED RUNNERS SCORE.
• Game 3: In the top of the fifth, Tyler Glasnow walks Nathan Lukes, but records two outs before Anthony Banda gets a pop-up to end the inning. NO INHERITED RUNNERS SCORE.

So let’s tally that up, shall we. Out of eleven runners that the starters left on base when Doc made the call to the bullpen TEN of them scored. Ten! Obviously, you’re not going to have much success if you’re letting inherited runners score at a 90% clip.

Now some of this is a function of the bullpen being bad in the first place. In each of the three losses, it felt like manager Dave Roberts was trying to squeeze three more outs out of a fatigued starter and it blew up in his face each and every time. And in the first two losses anyway, the run expectancy was pretty high in those situations. The run expectancy in the first game was 2.282 (the Jays ended up getting 9). In Game 4, the run expectancy was 1.920 (the Jays scored four times). Finally, in Game 5, the run expectancy was much better for the Dodgers (only 0.471), but once again the Jays outperformed the stat, scoring two in the frame, and putting the game away with another in the eighth.

And you hate to say this, but this team has never missed Alex Vesia more. You could imagine that Vesia would have gotten some, if not all of the innings that Anthony Banda was given this week. And you would think that it would have gone a lot better than the abject disaster that this has turned into. Life got in the way, and the Dodgers made the right move in leaving him off the roster, but I’m sure it was eating him up to know he was needed and wasn’t available. We can only hope that whatever is happening in his family right now will come to a conclusion that gives Alex’s family some peace. And at least he will always know that he was there when he was needed.

So, dear brothers and sisters, that is no way to win postseason baseball games. In fairness, I have to point out that the bullpen did an excellent job of stranding runners in the 18-inning battle of attrition on Monday night, where they navigated out of some pretty impossible situations with the help of some amazing defense. But we have to acknowledge that the lineup this happened against looked more like a split squad game on a backfield in Florida than a World Series game: No Bo Bichette, no George Springer, no Alejandro Kirk. It’s a lot easier to put up zeroes against the likes of Ty France, Myles Straw and Tyler Heineman.

So Roberts and Prior (and the front office) need to think outside the box in Games 6 and 7. If Yoshi can’t finish an inning on Friday, you just can’t go to the usual suspects like Banda and Treinen anymore. There’s too much at stake. It’s got to be all hands on deck out there. Glasnow and Snell are probably both out for Friday, but everyone else should be available. If they need a lefty, they have to be ready to make the call for Clayton Kershaw. If they have a righthanded batter that needs to be retired, think about getting Sasaki out there earlier and let him take down the next inning as well.

Then if they can force a Game 7 in Toronto, things get fun: Johnny Wholestaff. They’ve got six quality starters who can take down multiple innings. Ride one as long as you can and then pull the trigger. Use Shohei to open and go once through the batting order if he looks good. Let Glasnow pick it up in the third or fourth and take down the middle innings. And then some mix of Sasaki, Kershaw, Yamamoto, and Snell to take the thing home. The one thing that would be unacceptable would be to run of these unproven guys out there when the entire season hangs in the balance.

These guys can sleep when they’re dead. This is a code red situation. No more bullpen arms should get into this World Series unless the Dodgers are up by, I don’t know, twelve runs or so. I’m only exaggerating slightly.

LFG, Dodgers!

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