Dodgers vs Yankees World Series Game 4 live updates: How to see who’s pitching, lineups, predictions and latest

Ben Casparius will start for the Dodgers in Game 4, but that’s not really the point, is it?

For the fourth time this postseason, Dodgers manager Dave Roberts is going with a bullpen play. Twice the Dodgers have won these bullpen games — Game 4 of the NLDS against the Padres and Game 6 of the NLCS against the Mets — and in Game 2 of the NLCS, which they lost.

Ryan Brasier started the first two of those bullpen games, Michael Kopech the other. In those three games, as many as eight pitchers have appeared in a game and as few as five. Brasier has appeared in all three, as has lefty Anthony Banda. Kopech, Daniel Hudson, Landon Knack and Evan Phillips have appeared in two of them. Phillips will not appear tonight because he is not on the roster.

Alex Vesia, who along with Banda represents the left-handed portion of the Dodgers bullpen, appeared in the first game.

The outlier of the three games is the loss to the Mets in Game 2 of the NLCS, when Brasier gave up one run in the first and then Knack allowed five in the second en route to a 7-3 Mets victory.

In the other two, Kopech, who closed out Game 3, pitched the third inning of the game he didn’t start. As a starter, he took care of one lap.

In the wins, no pitcher went more than two full innings, and the only pitcher to go two full was Blake Treinen, who closed out Game 6 of the NLCS with a six-run lead.

Unless the Yankees jump on the Dodgers early and turn it into a blowout, New York hitters are unlikely to get a second look at either pitcher.

And, yes, Casparius is nominally the starter. The 25-year-old right-hander was the second pitcher in Game 6 of the NLCS to go 1 1/3 innings, allowing two hits and no runs. Casparius was victorious in the clincher.

Casparius started the season in Double A and spent most of his year at Triple A as a starter. The Dodgers called him up in late August, and he made his debut on August 31. When he throws his first pitch tonight, he will have made more postseason appearances for the Dodgers in the big leagues than in regular season games. He’s still considered a starting prospect and throws four pitches, but he’s mostly relied on his four-seamer and pitches out of the bullpen. He will also occasionally throw a curveball. Over his three appearances in the NLCS, he has thrown the four-seam fastball 42.9 percent of the time, the slider 31.4 percent and the curveball 11.4 percent of the time.