The Los Angeles Dodgers just finished their first road trip of the season, going 5-1 against the Washington Nationals and Toronto Blue Jays. They returned to the scene of the crime in Canada, winning 2-of-3 there, just like they did in the World Series.
Ironically, it was the bullpen that lost them the final game, and the offense going a little cold after having scored a gazillion runs in the first four games. The starting pitching, as is had been in the World Series, has been stellar.
Speaking of
the starting pitching, Bill Shakin of the L.A. Times poses that if the Dodgers want to three-peat, then most likely none of their pitchers will be a Cy Young winner this season. In his post, he proposes that while obviously Yoshinobu Yamamoto has the talent to be the NL Cy Young winner, it might not be in the Dodgers’ best interest.
In the past few seasons, Manager Dave Roberts has not pushed the World Series MVP past six innings often if at all. He did go into the seventh inning in Monday’s start, but was removed after the first two batters reached, and he was at 97 pitches.
But as the last Dodgers pitcher to win the Cy Young and a World Series in the same season puts it, teams are putting more emphasis on their pitchers being able to have bullets in October instead of spending them in the regular season.
“As far as the workload in the playoffs compared to what they’re doing in the regular season, I think they all could still do what we did. I just think they’re not being trained or asked to do it. I just think it’s a different time and a different culture.
“He’s able to do it. I think (Shohei) Ohtani is able to do it. I think (Blake) Snell is able to do it. I think (Tyler) Glasnow is able to do it. But there is a different way to spend your assets now.”
If last postseason is any indication, the Dodgers would much rather have their elite pitchers be able to go the extra mile in the postseason then to rack up innings in the regular season.
Shohei Ohtani had been the owner of both the longest on-base streak and the longest scoreless inning streak going into Wednesday’s game. The scoreless inning streak came to an end even though the run was unearned, but his on-base streak is still going.
With his lead-off walk in Wednesday’s game, Ohtani extended his on-base streak to 43 games, tying Ichiro Suzuki for the longest streak by a Japanese born player, in MLB. Sonja Chen of MLB.com covers all the details of Ohtani’s outings on both sides of the field here.
