Nobody’s complaining about time off between series as the Yankees and Dodgers ready for a historic twelfth meeting. Both teams will benefit from many days of no baseball.
There was some some grumbling after last year’s ouster of first place bye teams. One such complaint came directly from Braves manager Brian Snitker:
“It’s hard to hit velocity when you haven’t seen anything in five days,” Snitker said, h/t That Ball’s Outta Here. “That’s my biggest thing. We had a team that set all these records and everything offensively, and we didn’t hit much in the postseason.”
In the first two seasons of the new wild card rounds all 4 national league top seeds had gone out without winning a series. Not so this year as the top seeds from each league have made it to the finish line.
The Dodgers finished off the Mets in game 6 on Sunday night at Dodger stadium. They got five off days between series. The Yanks only needed five in sending the Guardians home and they’ve had six days off.
We have already watched Cleveland’s bullpen and others melt down by overuse. Some of the best relief arms in the business done in by almost daily work, pitches, innings and sudden familiarty.
Days off a bullpen lifeline
The break could not have come at a better time for both teams with tired pens but more so for the Dodgers who are forced into bullpen games after an insane amount of starter injuries.
Tyler Glasnow, Clayton Kershaw, Dustin May, Tony Gonsolin. Gavin Stone, River Ryan and Emmet Sheehan are all hurt and unavilable. They’ve also lost reliever Evan Phillips. And of course Shohei Ohtani who will pitch next season.
The rest also gives the Dodgers pen a pair of arms they didn’t have in the NLCS. While losing the services of Philllips (Arm fatigue). Alex Vesia and Brusdal Graterol return. Phillips had lost the closer’s role down the stretch but was unscored upon in 5 games this post season.
The starters that did make it to the NLCS delivered these innings in their starts: Jack Flaherty 6 and 5, Walker Buehler 4, Yoshinobu Yamamoto 4 1/3. The other two games were filled by openers Ryan Brazier and Michael Kopech 1 each.
That means the Dodgers bullpen covered 32 of the 53 innings during the six game series. This gives them the needed reset. Obviously it doesn’t hurt the Yankees bullpen but they handled just 24 of 47 innings in five and they get an extra day off.
The layoff has allowed Freddie Freemen’s ankle to stop barking. The star first baseman was notably hobbling and even missed two starts in the NLCS. He’s had seasons where he’s missed less games.
The Yankees get back pitcher Nestor Cortes. He was a top innings eater with 174 1/3 innings in 31 starts but he won’t be starting. They also will have a healthier first baseman as Anthony Rizzo’s broken finger on his glove hand has had a few more days to heal.
