Searching the whole of the National League, one will not find a team utilizing a starting pitcher at or near the caliber of Tyler Glasnow this Saturday. Scheduling and other outside factors led to some rotations—including the Dodgers—not necessarily starting the season in descending order of skill set, but the point is valid all the same. It won’t get much easier for opposing offenses against the Dodgers, at least not while this rotation can stay—knock on wood—moderately healthy.
As much as we could
focus on Glasnow and his outlook heading into a third season with the Dodgers, for a third game of the season, this will be as big an endurance test to the bullpen early on as one could ask for. For starters, Glasnow isn’t the type of pitcher to go that deep into a game, even when he’s rolling, a byproduct of all those strikeouts. Secondly and most importantly, the Dodgers’ bullpen has excelled in a sizeable share of work these past two days. Dodger relievers have covered nearly a full game’s worth of baseball, responsible for 8.2 scoreless frames in a pair of two wins against the Diamondbacks.
It speaks to the depth of this unit that the Dodgers were able to cover all of these innings with Tanner Scott being the only pitcher who appeared in both games. And even Scott had a minimal workload in both games, not even cracking double-digit pitches.
Kyle Tucker’s go-ahead RBI takes the headlines, but the Dodgers don’t win that game if Jack Dreyer and Ben Casparius falter early on, both asked to throw 20+ pitches in a game the Dodgers only got 10 outs from their starter.
Saturday’s game info
- Teams: Dodgers vs. Diamondbacks
- Ballpark: Dodger Stadium, Los Angeles
- Start time: 6:10 p.m. PT
- TV: SportsNet LA
- Radio: AM 570 (English), KTNQ 1020 AM (Spanish), 98.7 FM’s Arizona Sports Station, KNAI 101.9 FM / 860 AM
