The Dodgers remain steadfast in their World Series pitching strategy

NEW YORK — The Dodgers trailed by one run with four innings remaining. Did the Dodgers consider using one of their top relievers?

“It doesn’t make sense,” Dodgers manager Dave Roberts said.

The Dodgers trailed by two runs with two innings remaining. A bloop and a bang, as they say, and the Dodgers would have tied the game. Did the Dodgers consider using one of their top relievers?

“No,” said Roberts.

This is the World Series, not the third week in August.

The Dodgers could have gone for the neck and the World Series sweep against the New York Yankees on Tuesday. The coaching staff and front office decided not to.

With four chances to win the clinching game in the World Series, the Dodgers decided not to risk exhausting their pitching staff on Tuesday, weakening it for a potential game on Wednesday.

There is game 5 on Wednesday. If the Dodgers couldn’t win Tuesday, did Roberts think the outcome in terms of the pitching scheme went as well as expected? “Absolutely,” Roberts said.

It’s amazing that the Dodgers – the team with the best record in the major leagues – literally ran out of starting pitchers and still advanced to the World Series.

Tuesday marked the last of the Dodgers’ bullpen games this postseason. They won two, lost two.

They have their three proven starters lined up for the rest of the series. Jack Flaherty will start Game 5. If the series returns to Los Angeles, Yoshinobu Yamamoto will start Game 6, with Walker Buehler ready for a potential Game 7.

One win back.

“I’m not worried about how I expected the series to play out,” Flaherty said before Tuesday’s game. “I’m just worried about getting one more.”

There was a time in baseball — and for some teams this is still the time — when teams would not use their best relievers in certain regular season games when the situation seemed to call for it. The reason: These relievers needed to be fresh and ready to pitch every day in October if needed.

At the latest frontier of analytical research, this is not considered wise. If a reliever faces the opposing team too often, no matter how fresh that reliever may be, opposing batters can adapt to his repertoire and become more likely to hit him hard.

In this World Series, the Yankees are old school: Use your best relievers as often as possible. Five relievers have worked at least three of the four games; Clay Holmes has worked in all four.

The Dodgers are a new school: No reliever has worked in all four. Three have worked in three of the four games, including left-handers Anthony Banda and Alex Vesia.

In the third inning, with Daniel Hudson struggling and three of the Yankees’ left-handed hitters going up over four batters, Roberts declined to use Banda or Vesia.

“I just didn’t want to use them in the third inning,” Roberts said.

Hudson gave up a grand slam to Anthony Volpe (who, in fairness, hits right-handed). The Yankees took the lead and never surrendered it.

With the Dodgers down by two in the eighth inning, Roberts called on Brent Honeywell Jr., making his first appearance in 11 days, and instructed him to finish. He did, but not before giving up five runs in one inning and making 50 pitches. No pitcher has thrown more pitches in a postseason appearance in one inning or less, according to Jay Jaffe of Fangraphs.

And in fairness, too, analytics weren’t to blame for everything that ailed the Dodgers on Tuesday.

Of the Yankees’ first five runs, three were scored by players who had reached base on a walk or hit by pitch.

In the eighth inning, the Yankees stole three bases from Honeywell – one of them stealing third base with a left-handed batter at the plate.

Over the final four innings — all but one of which started with the Dodgers down by one or two runs — the Dodgers went 0 for 12 with six strikeouts.

And here’s another stat for you: In what was a bullpen game for the Dodgers, the Yankees used more pitchers.

No team in Major League history has won the first three games of the World Series and lost the series. No team with a 3-0 lead even needed a Game 6 to play.

The Dodgers will if they lose on Wednesday.

During the National League Championship Series, Roberts said he would not pitch in the postseason today as he had in 2017, when he used reliever Brandon Morrow in all seven games of the World Series. “I’ve evolved,” he said.

None of those relievers pitched Tuesday: Banda, Vesia, Blake Treinen, Michael Kopech, Ryan Brasier and Brusdar Graterol.

So the Dodgers feel about the same as they did the day before Game 6 of the NLCS when the Dodgers clinched their World Series berth. That day, Roberts said, “I don’t think we’ve exposed our high-leverage guys at all.”

It doesn’t quite have the ring of “If you don’t love the Dodgers, there’s a good chance you might not get to heaven.” But that’s where the Dodgers are today, still one win away from a championship.