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There was a lot of discourse about the Dodgers’ bullpen usage — specifically Landon Knack — during Monday’s the 7-3 Game 2 loss. Naturally, people blame Dave Roberts for punting the game, even if that isn’t an accurate portrayal of what happened.
After Ryan Brasier allowed a solo homer to Francisco Lindor to lead off the game, he got extremely lucky to get out of the rest of the inning unscathed.
With the 5-6-7 hitters due up, Knack was called upon to pitch. He struggled and probably should have been out before Mark Vientos came to the plate to hit the (ultimately) game-deciding grand slam in the second inning, but with the score 2-0 at that point, the math didn’t work out to use a different arm in that situation.
From Ken Rosenthal of The Athletic:
“Roberts was so short-handed Monday, he said going to anyone but Knack in the second might have left him without enough pitching to finish the game. The math indeed suggests he would have been left scrambling at some point, even if he went to Knack later.
Think about it: Roberts could possibly count on three outs each from five relievers — Brasier, the lefty (Anthony) Banda and righties Evan Phillips, (Michael) Kopech and Blake Treinen. Nine from Knack still would have left the Dodgers three outs short, unless Roberts extended Treinen or Phillips. Or used one of the lesser relievers who played a prominent role Monday — righties Brent Honeywell, who pitched three scoreless innings, and Henriquez, who worked the final two.”
Of course, no one could have predicted Brent Honeywell Jr.‘s three scoreless innings, which should not be overlooked. It happened, but that was something that couldn’t have been counted on — it could have very well been Honeywell who struggled while Knack was good. And if Knack had thrown 2-3 scoreless innings, we wouldn’t be having this discussion right now. Conversely, if the Dodgers’ bullpen game plan in Game 4 of the NLDS hadn’t worked, we’d be having an entirely different discussion right now.
The fact is, bullpen games are volatile because bullpens are volatile. With Roberts choosing to use some medium-leverage guys in Game 1 (and Daniel Hudson being unavailable), it didn’t make a ton of sense to use them in Game 2, nor could they do the same thing they did against the Padres. This is a 7-game series, and the extra rest the high-leverage arms got yesterday (Kopech, Phillips, Treinen) could actually benefit the Dodgers later in the series. Yes, the Dodgers have a day off today, but those three were leaned on pretty heavily in the NLDS and throughout the season — not to mention Phillips missed time with an injury and Treinen got a late start after recovering from injury. With Alex Vesia out for this series, it meant Roberts would have to be a little more tactful in deploying the high-leverage guys. Down 2-0 in the second inning, even with the Mets having runners on seemingly all inning, didn’t seem like the best course of action. There’s every chance one of them could have suffered the same or a similar fate to what happened to Knack, and we’d still be having this discussion today.
There’s a reason why bullpen games aren’t the norm. And after managing it beautifully in Game 4 of the NLDS, it backfired in Game 2 of the NLCS. It happens.
Now, there’s an argument to be made that Buehler could have gone in Game 2 instead if they didn’t want to use the high-leverage guys in non-high-leverage situations, but that would mean a bullpen game in one of the three games in New York, while hoping Jack Flaherty and Yoshinobu Yamamoto could throw at least five innings of quality ball on their own. Flaherty did so in Game 1, Yamamoto did in the NLDS-clinching Game 5, but both weren’t at their best in their first appearances of the NLDS.
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Pitching is fickle! Managing is hard. There are legitimate questions to be asked about how yesterday’s game went, but the Dodgers only mustered three runs and had multiple opportunities to overcome the 6-0 deficit. Sure, the mindset of hitting when down 1-0 or 2-0 is different than 6-0, but the fact is, they still have to hit enough to score. Take away the grand slam and, yeah, it’s a 3-3 game, but that’s assuming everything else throughout the game went exactly the same, and we all now that isn’t how that works.
Hindsight is 20/20. If Knack had thrown a couple scoreless innings, folks would still be praising Roberts. Instead, Landon Knack has never had his name written more about in his life because of his subpar performance. But all this doesn’t matter if the offense doesn’t show up. Sean Manaea looked unhittable in the first four innings before Max Muncy touched him up in the fifth. Then they finally got a rally going in the sixth. While it’s deflating to see them mount a comeback and have multiple opportunities to tie and/or take the lead, it’s also encouraging as we’ve seen Dodger teams in the postseason wither and die in these exact situations.
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The bullpen game was the right call in Game 2, it just didn’t work out. That’s baseball, and you have to give credit to the Mets’ offense for putting together a game plan to beat the Dodgers’ game plan. The Mets had the best record in baseball after June 1. Despite barely getting into the postseason, they’re a good team, so this wasn’t going to be a short series. As such, the Dodgers will have to counter in hopes of making it back to the World Series.
