Rates & Barrels - The LCS matchups heat up

Episode Date: October 15, 2020

Eno, Britt and DVR discuss the Dodgers' offensive explosion in Game 3, the Astros' first win of the ALCS, and the questions surrounding several pitching plans for Thursday's matchups. Rundown 0:54 The Dodgers’ Offense Erupts 7:01 A Successor for Hunter Pence 12:18 Springer’s Big Homer; Greinke’s Start Lead Astros to Win 12:54 Which Relievers Do You Trust in Houston? 17:51 The Rays’ Starting Pitcher Options for Game 5 23:26 How Close Was Willy Adames to a Game-Tying Homer? 25:36 Concerns About the Rays’ Offense? 28:56 Predictions for Thursday’s Matchups Follow Eno on Twitter: @enosarris Follow Britt on Twitter: @Britt_Ghiroli Follow DVR on Twitter: @DerekVanRiper e-mail: [e-mail] Subscribe to The Athletic for just $1/month: theathletic.com/ratesandbarrels Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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It's Thursday, October 15th. On this episode, two plot twists in the LCS matchups on Wednesday night. The Astros will play at least one more day, and the Dodgers put together a performance that will probably keep people from questioning the quality of their offense for a few days, putting 11 runs on the Braves in the first inning. And it kind of slipped my mind in the moment that the Braves gave up 10 early to the Cardinals last year and they were eliminated in that game. So that was even worse. So a lot to break down and a lot to look forward to.

Let's talk about the Braves-Dodgers matchup first. That huge first inning just completely basically ended the game 30 minutes in. It was a kind of a white flag situation for Atlanta. I think the goals were, one, don't burn through all of your relievers so you actually have as many of them available as possible for game four. And two, if possible, try and make the Dodgers use more of their relievers than they want to, right? Because you're probably not coming back in that situation and they never really threatened, of course.

So I think we got to give the unheralded performance of the postseason award to Hiskar Inouye for coming in and chewing up a bunch of innings for the Braves and sparing the other relievers in that bullpen. But as far as an offensive performance goes, that was just amazing what the Dodgers were able to do to the Braves on Wednesday night.

Yeah, and we thought this might happen, right, with the Braves past their second starter. It seems like they dropped off. I'll tell you what, though, guys. Brian Snicker, the Braves manager, said it post-game and you kind of have to agree. He said, I'd rather we lose like that than a 7-5 game where we grind it out and use our best relievers. As you mentioned, Yanoa ate up a ton of innings for them and they didn't use any of their good relievers. Their A bullpen is still rested. So yes, they can't go out and have another,

you know, complete mess after the first inning, but honestly, they're not in as bad of a situation as they would have been if they had lost a close game, which I know we're sitting here talking about moral victories, but I think if you're the Braves, you have to find some way to get the ball back to Max Freed. And if you could piece together some kind of a bullpen game tomorrow and not be in a double-digit deficit, I don't know. You're not really sure. Clayton Kershaw, we know, is coming back. And I don't really know.

Does anyone know what you're going to expect from Clayton Kershaw? What do you think, Eno? The big question, I think, with Kershaw is not quality but length, right? And if he doesn't give them the length, then we start talking again about how good Jake McGee is or whatever conversation we've been having about that for what seems like forever. But I do agree that it is good, better that the bullpen is ready. And I see some of the shades of that in the other series. So both losses, the losers are still ahead in the series

and the rest of their bullpen. However, for the Braves, they've got to start it out with Bryce Wilson. So it's going to be a bullpen game against the Dodgers. What if they get two innings out of Bryce Wilson? What if they get two innings out of Bryce Wilson, use all their A relievers, and lose tomorrow? Then it starts to look a little bit worse. Because, I don't know, you start talking about like short rest with relievers that have been

used the night before. Relievers typically have something like almost like a three E era when they've had a rest the day before and on back-to-back nights it goes to like four and a half so you know that that could shift the power a little bit if the dodgers win tomorrow and the braves use their relievers um i would favor the dodgers in the next game as well and then all of a sudden you're talking about the Dodgers being ahead. It's a big actual momentum swing at this point, having come out, done what they're supposed to do in Game 3, and actually have Kershaw coming back in 4. I mean, expectations for him.

He's dealt with back issues in the past, so I'm not worried about him going short. I mean, I think there's a chance he can go 5 or 6 like he normally would, and it just seems like the kind of thing that he's probably figured out how to manage over time. And even if he does go short, their bullpen, their eight guys at least,

are very much rested. When we talked about the end of the show yesterday, we talked about how the games have been closer, and it was kind of a shame that the series weren't closer. Our fault. The Dodgers kind of reversed that that the series weren't closer. Our fault. The Dodgers kind of reversed that on us, gave us a blowout that brought the series closer. Maybe you can't win either way.

But I do think that there is a moral victory in this. It might be for the Dodgers. They got the monkey off their back. And I hate to sound like a pundit here, but, you know, the Dodgers, you know, everyone says they can't hit in the postseason, right? So, you know, it's good for Corey Seager, you know, to hit a home run and go three for four. It's good for Max Muncy to hit a home run. Cody Bellinger has, you know, had a terrible year, and for him to go out and make that play in center field and hit a home run, I mean, I think think everyone got healthy is feeling a little bit better about themselves and maybe got a little

bit of that monkey off the bat like oh my god are we gonna score ever this postseason um yes yes that okay that catch was a good catch but i was listening to the radio during that uh and i thought i got home and couldn't wait to watch the replay and thinking it was like the best catch to ever live. Cause that's how it was described to me. It's not even the top two of this post season. I think he made a better one in the San Diego series. And I think Margo's catch obviously for Tampa Bay was better.

So it was a good catch. But Kiermaier's belly slide catch. Yeah. Which I actually liked a little even better than the stealing home run one i would i if i if we were like ranking at top three catches it'd be the kiermeyer belly margot and um the the one in the in the earlier series from from bellinger right right so i think those would be the the three i would i would do too so uh yeah but but he's still exciting you know and i kind of like that dopey stoner. But he's still exciting. And I kind of like that dopey stoner look.

He's got this serious stoner vibe. You've seen that meme going around where it's just like why don't they call them quadruples? And it's just like a picture of him looking out. There's so many memes with him. He's just got a memeable face. He's just

staring into the abyss in the dugout. Totally Fast Times at Ridgemont High. It's nice that someone took that torch from Hunter Pence since Pence has retired. It was kind of important that someone took that over. I'm glad it stayed in the NL West.

It seems like it's in good hands with Cody Bellinger for the foreseeable future. But I think you're right. I mean, Bryce Wilson is not going to pitch deep into this game. There's no reason to believe that he will. And the Braves are going to have to string together four or five good relief performances behind him if they're going to come away with that game four win. And they're going to have to solve Clayton Kershaw on top of all that.

So definitely an uphill battle for them in this middle part of the series and i i don't like these series without an off day i i think this is too much strain to put on a pitching staff i know tactically you know things start to break down a little bit if you have too many off days but there's got to be a happy medium between previous schedules and this one that actually kind of gives us the the tough decisions without being completely ridiculous for teams that simply don't have enough quality pitching depth i mean i know you want to separate the wheat from the chaff in the postseason but this just feels like it's turned up a notch too high yeah they should have had at least one and whether that's after game three or four,

you can kind of quibble over, right? But I think during the season, they have three-game series and four-game series without off days all the time. So that, to me, not that big of a deal. I would have probably found some kind of natural reset in the middle of that series, because this is a weird year and

there's no travel day or anything. But I agree with you. I think just having the benefit of that one off day allows for a lot of gamesmanship, right? You can bring guys back on short rest that pitched earlier in the season. You can maybe push some relievers a little bit more before that off day. So yeah, I would agree with that. I think, I don't want to say unfair because everyone has to deal with it, but you're certainly not super excited to watch the Braves four or five starters, right? You're just

not excited at all. I'd also say it is unfair to one group of people. Relievers. Yow. True. We're talking about starters, sure, it is kind of bad. They're all going on short rest and all that stuff but uh these relievers i i kind of feel i feel like maybe we're gonna see you know this year we had we saw three times as many pitching injuries as a regular year two to three times uh depending on the year so i i kind of feel like next year will be the second highest

pitcher injury year on record. I don't think it's going to regress all the way back to a normal year because we're probably seeing people, you know, they're throwing as hard as they can, and they're also throwing on short rest, and they're being used three games in a row. One thing I did ask Cash about before the game was, I asked him if they got Nick Anderson warm in game three, and he said they never got him warm, and he was on total shutdown that night.

And I thought that was good, and I think we've seen that a little bit in the Rays' reliever usage, that they've managed to win games with different A groupings. You know what I mean? They have their, like, guys, obviously Pete Fairbanks, Diego Castillo, and Nick Anderson are like the creme de la creme, but they can kind of alternate those guys so that you use two out of those three every night and you kind of use Curtis and you use all these guys

and you get through it. So in terms of keeping their guys healthy, I think the Rays are doing all right and they have most of their guys healthy for tomorrow night and rested, more importantly, I guess. That's a good point. I mean, I think also when you're the Rays and some of these smaller market teams, you can't afford to, like, blow out the arms of half your bullpen and have to replace it next year. Yeah, that's true. Buck Showalter used to always talk about this in Baltimore, that, you know, they weren't the Yankees. He's like, we can't replace these guys.

If we overuse them one year and they're hurt the next, the razor King of these cheap under team control type of guys. So yes, they want to win this year, but you also have to have a little bit of the wherewithal of, okay, we need these guys for the long haul too. I think that's important. And then on the shorter term also getting to the world series do you want nick anderson to be effective you know like we've

we saw it earlier in the series and i wonder how much that was just fatigue or being off but i think it was was a game one when he didn't look right uh yeah yeah so you wonder if they start to say all right we got to back off and spread the load around. And that's a lot easier in Tampa Bay's bullpen than pretty much anyone else's. But it's an interesting point, especially this year. I wonder about these guys pitching deep into the postseason, how they look in the regular season next year. Because you know there's that ebb and flow for relievers. I know it was a shortened season, but like you said, the lack of rest has got to show up somewhere at some point in time Brandon Morrow pitched

in every single game of that World Series I was I would have put my life on him being injured the next year so and he was but that was a downer I thought it was a downer. Jeez.

I thought it was a great game though. The Rays, the Rays Astros game was a fun one. It came down to the final out. They could have tied it on the final out and the final out itself was a loud one. And you know, there were, there are definitely well-matched teams.

So spring, you're turning on 99 up in the zone from glass. Now for the big homer. That was a big deal. You got some lean on that swing, too. Like, you got a little lean back launch action on that ball, which was pretty fun to watch. But the big gamble in that game was the decision to leave Zach Grinke in to face Mike Brasso,

I think with the bases loaded in the sixth. And it comes back to the recurring theme in Houston, like which relievers do you trust there? Who do you want to bring in with traffic on the base pass? And a fatigued Zach Greinke, who for the better part of the last seven or eight starts just hasn't been the best version of Greinke, actually got through, threw an excellent curveball to finish off Brasso in that at-bat. The gamble paid off, and then Christian Javier came in

and pitched really well for two innings. He allowed the leadoff runner to reach in the ninth before Ryan Presley came on and kind of tight-roped it and made it really close. I mean, there's a lot to unpack here. I saw Enoli Paredes was warming up when Presley was struggling. Maybe that was in part because Presley appeared to roll his ankle in this appearance. Presley also was warming for that Granke moment.

So the game could have gone completely differently if they'd brought in Presley then. They wouldn't have had him at the end. It might have been a bad move to bring in Presley. Like, how many other relievers do they trust? Well, I didn't think Javier was really an option. I mean, I realize that it's an elimination game for them. You got to stay alive. You got to win to play the next day. But I thought Christian Javier was starting game five. I thought that was almost a lock. So now we're kind of in TBA status as we record this here very late Wednesday night or

very early Thursday morning, depending on where you are. But I really was surprised that they used him. I think it made sense given how well he pitched. But now what do they do? Do they bring back Frambois Valdez on short rest to take the ball on Thursday? That's what I would do. You know what I want to point out too, though, that Granke very much benefited from that called third strike.

That probably wasn't – he probably didn't go. I don't think he went. That kind of changed the whole, and I think it was Brasso that kind of changed the whole complexion, or was it, I don't remember who was up, but that second out of the inning, to me, changed the whole complexion of that inning. Yes, Dusty had a lot of faith keeping Grinke in. People wanted to compliment

him, but to me that changed the whole complexion. Because if he didn't have two outs against Brasso, he probably wouldn't have left Grinke in. Exactly. It was Randy Arrozarena who got job in the Czech swing call. How dare Tim Timmons do that to the randy

i mean he's just trying to ruin eno's article and obviously you can't do that because randy continues to rake and that sign they made for him that's like rakes all day what is it night all night night day or something night day year it spells out Randy. Yeah, that's right. It's awesome. It's just terrific. But I think if you're the Astros from – Yeah, Brett Phillips bringing the non-intangibles, right? Yeah. Brett Phillips is going to be a bench coach someday, isn't he? Probably.

But I don't know. I just – if you're the Astros, I think from Brown short rest is probably your best bet, no? I mean, I'm sure they would have preferred to not use Presley today and to have him rested, ready to go, and the ability to kind of maybe lengthen him if you needed to tomorrow. I don't know what happened to his ankle. I don't know what his avail, how much you can expect out of him because he did pitch in this game. But the Astros are in another must-win game. They're in another elimination game i think you have to throw the book at them as much as you can yeah and it might be tempting

if you're the rays uh to throw fleming and the bullpen um in order to get to snell on full rest followed followed by morton on full rest yeah I mean you'd feel like you definitely win one of those two games now if you bring Snell on short rest against Fromber on short rest I feel like that might be a 50-50 situation and then you lose that one you maybe tax your bullpen and now you're bringing in Morton on short rest who's, might be tempting to go Fleming in the bullpen. I agree. As much as you want to not give Houston any kind of opening, you also have the ability to kind of look and say, okay, we have to win one of these next three games. How do we do that? And I think you're right, Eno. I think it makes the most sense if you're Kevin Cash to not panic, not bring these guys back when they could be at 80%.

By the way, did you guys see this was only the third playoff game all year that both the starting pitchers win six innings? Which is super kind of depressing. I 100% believe that stuff. I mean, it's a good one, but I 100% believe it.

That many? I know, right? You got to try and think. You're like, what were the other games? Garrett Cole maybe when he was facing someone? Now I'm trying to think. Yeah, Cole Snell maybe the first time. Man, that's a good one. I've seen a lot of pitchers leaving early.

We all have. I don't know. I'm thinking about this Fleming situation. If you start him, is it the same as using Yarbrough in a lot of ways where performance completely dictates how many times you let him go through the order? and change or five, then you kind of feel like you've won the lottery in some ways. I mean, I think part of the reason I even believe in Josh Fleming's stuff working is because of the organization he's pitching for. It's that they know how to make a game plan for a guy that doesn't have premium stuff. And I think because they do it so frequently, that's where the confidence comes from. But should

I be that confident that this could work if they go Fleming? I mean, I think with Josh Fleming throwing from the left side and Ryan Thompson being an utter roogie, you know, dropping down from the right side, I think that's such a really hard combo to game plan for to lineup plan for and so basically you you you throw those two in the mix somehow opener not opener however you think you can do it and you hope for four innings if it's four innings and it's a tight game one or two runs then you can break out all your best bullpen arms and try to win it. If it's not close, you play McClanahan and Slagers and you come back the next day with Snell on full rest and everybody in the bullpen ready to go. So it's almost like punting this game to, it's not quite a punt because, you know, you've

used Fleming and Thompson in games that you thought you would win, but it's kind of enough of a punt where you're like, you know, we're trying to, you know, have our best game in game six. So let's be clear. When it comes to shipping internationally, can I provide trade documents electronically? Mm-hmm. The answer is FedEx. Okay, but what about estimating duties and taxes on my shipments?

How do I find all the... Also FedEx. Impressive. Is there a regulatory specialist I can ask about? FedEx. Oh. But let's say that... FedEx. What? FedEx. Thanks. No more questions.

Always your answer for international shipping. FedEx. Where now meets next. By the way, Dusty Baker announced to the media that he will not be starting Framper Valdez himself. No Dusty and no Framper Valdez himself. No Dusty and no Framper on three days rest.

Whoa. Are they going to bullpen it? I don't know. I think it's bullpen on both sides then. God help us all. See, this is what I'm saying. This is where I think the off day should be. It should be after game three. I think to Britt's point, you play three and four game series throughout the season.

No problem. But in the postseason, at the league championship series level, after four, you have a break on the fifth day and you go three straight. I think that's the happy medium. That's what we want going forward. Who am I missing? Who on the Astros roster hasn't pitched? Because I'm looking at the bottom who has pitched. And you're talking about Scrub.

I mean, Scrub is the name of the game in this one. Scrub, Taylor, Raley, James. Has Chase DeYoung thrown? He has not. So that's your five, and you're hoping to get nine out of them? I don't know. Bring back maybe somebody else to close it down if you're winning. Luis Garcia, maybe? Also, Dusty apparently said no Lance McCullers,

who I thought maybe could throw the equivalent of his side session and start that game as an opener. But apparently not. It's going to be a pretty scrubby game. And I bet you the response from the Rays is definitely Fleming-Thompson. Yeah, you don't waste Snell when the Astros are not even, you know. I guess if you're the Astros, you're trying to live another day and then hoping that you can then go to your guys on regular rest

because you like the way that those two guys have pitched. But this is a roll of the dice here. Or maybe the Rays say, you know what? This is the time we step on their throat. And Snell on less rest is perfect with this. I don't know. Don't you kind of have to announce this? I'm just legitimately perplexed by this. It's kind of weird that they don't have to tell us anything.

I mean, they do, but they don't. We're just left to guess. Dusty did tell us something. Yeah, he did. I've been at playoff games where they brought two starters to the podium. Because they just refused to tell. Oh, my goodness. I've been at playoff games where they brought two starters to the podium because they just refused to tell. Oh my goodness. I mean. I hate that.

I hate that. Exactly. Seems like a little too much. It's the gamesmanship. And I do think to your. Somebody asked Cash a little bit about it, about like if you were using an opener, is there like some sort of understanding? Like do people know who the bulk guy is? And they really haven't

i mean have they done an opener in the playoffs yarborough but he went deep yeah i don't think they haven't done it like in a traditional style where one guy came in for one inning they kind of seem like a little bit over and they feel like we've got a good enough we've got a good enough pitching staff tomorrow might be a little bit different because it's more bullpen gamey um i think but um yeah i i i think that teams now uh i have talked to catchers about this too catchers like yeah i got to prepare for the whole freaking staff yeah you know like that's not fun yeah it's a lot of work for the lucroi gave me the biggest eye roll man i was like how do you like this how do you like this new new world order you know and he's like i hate it i used to have to prepare for the guy i used to have to prepare

for the starter and then know the relievers generally now i need to kind of game plan with three four guys before we get to the ballpark man i i don't know how catchers hit it's also true so much else to do it's true i mean i don't know i guess dusty also said that he was praying there were a lot of prayers involved when he left granky in for that inning which is such a such a dusty thing to say like in the in the age of analytics there's dusty baker over there praying in the dugout that his decision works out. I mean. Well, you know, two things that I found interesting just from this game before we previewed, like we already done the preview, but two things I do want to not leave behind from this game. Adamas's homer, Adamas's non-homer is a homer about 40% of the time.

That does not factor in the spray angle. That's just the launch angle in Velo. So I think that A, it's later in San Diego, getting colder, and B, kind of to a deeper part of the plate. If he'd pulled it more down the line, it would have been a homer, I think. And then this is a kind of interesting factoid from Devin Fink, who's written a Beyond the Box score in Fangraphs. In no 11-game stretch in Brandon Lau's career

has he failed to record an extra base hit before this 11-game stretch in these playoffs. He's been really quiet. I mean, if you believe in the he's due sort of logic brandon lau is due he's not not playing well so far this postseason that's a great poll from devon i saw this from jason stark before we signed on this is when christian javier was leaving the game in the ninth inning i left of course with G-Man Choi on first base. The last three-inning postseason save in a game this close was Brad

Peacock in Game 3 of the 2017 World Series. Other than that, the only other one since 1987 was Madison Bumgarner, that five-inning save that he had in Game 7 of the 2014 World Series. One of the best pitching performances I've ever seen.

You guys, by the way, I got the other two six-inning starts. They were both in the wild card and a wild card game one. Remember when Bauer went against Freed? There you go. We should have remembered that one. This was like a week ago, right? It seems like it was a year ago. It seems like three years ago.

And then the Marlins when they had Sandy Alcantara. I can never say this guy. Thank you. I can never say his name. And Kyle Hendricks. It does feel like a year ago, because I don't remember which Hendricks is pitching on which team.

But, I mean, there's a secret story going on with the Rays when it comes to their hitting just not being here. You know? You know, other than... Yes. Other than Rosarena. And to some extent, Wendell's had a bit of the magic wandu going where he's not hitting for power, but he is hitting for batting average.

He has a.267 average. He has a.267 slugging, too, so it's not like Wendell's carrying the team. And if you look at it um you know a rosarena has 19 hits and it's hitting 442 with almost a 1400 ops next person is wendell with eight hits and kiermeier was seven hitting 212 manuel margot with seven hitting 241 i mean this team is hitting hitting 200 without a Rosarena factored in. Yeah.

And that's a good point. They need somebody to figure it out. I mean, Kiermaier, you know, coming back could be good. He makes a little bit of contact. It could be someone like we saw Willie Adamas get going a little bit today. It could be Adamas. It could be Meadows had that big homer. Even someone like Yandy Diaz.

They do have guys that could just randomly get hot and do it, but they have to do it. They have to kind of do it soon because Randy's going to tail off. I mean, he's already, I think it's already, they're kind of throwing him breakers below the zone and finding out if he'll chase them. And, you know, they're already kind of trying to feel around on a new book on him. So someone needs get to get something going i just keep looking at the xba column on the baseball savant box scores every time we see the rays and they're losing in that column 169 in game 4 303 for the astros i mean the quality of the balls the rays are putting in play just has not been there at all and yeah eventually that will catch up with them.

Yeah, they've been complaining about this on the Rays radio feed since the Yankee series, that they either hit a home run or they don't score. And they haven't been exactly bashing a lot of home runs. And you've talked about their strikeout, right, and how they really have kind of bucked the trend in that they're winning and they're still here. And usually those teams go home early in the playoffs. And what saves them, what we've been praising them for, is their defense and their pitching, right?

They seem to know where the ball's going to be hit. They've gotten the most ridiculously lucky double plays I think I've ever seen in this series and the last series. And their pitching's really good. So it's hard to knock them when they've been so successful in the playoffs but they haven't really hit since the playoffs started i don't know i didn't follow them that closely did they hit in september did they hit as a team in the weeks leading up i mean they hit all right because of the power but they had a 31 percent strikeout rate as a team in september i mean, you know, there were some of the signs were there. It's interesting that both of these games, you know, the teams are still ahead. You know, Tampa should win this one. The percentages say they should win this. They're 3-1.

Even the percentages for the Braves, who are only 2-1, still in their favor. But I think both these games really kind of showed you if this ends up differently, if this ends up going seven, if this ends up with the Dodgers winning or the Astros winning. These games showed us why. These games gave us the idea of how it might happen. Last thing before we go, predictions for Thursday. Who are the two winners? You can go first, Britt.

I think the Dodgers win. The Dodgers are going to make this a series. I think that's going to surprise no one. You know what? The Astros are just one off day short of making this a series. I think the Rays still win tomorrow and end up punching their ticket to the World Series. Yeah, I'm going to take the Rays either way, even Snell or Fleming-Thompson, because I still think if the Astros are going to try and do some sort of bullpen game,

the Rays are better equipped to do a bullpen game. So I think it may have a lower score than it seems when you look at the fact that it's a bullpen game and nobody knows what's going on. But I think the Rays will squeak it out. The Dodgers are heavily favored tomorrow. I wouldn't be surprised if the odds come out tomorrow and the Dodgers are almost like 60-40 to win the game. Yeah, they're going to be heavy favorites when the lines are probably available now.

But I like the Rays a lot. I think if they throw Fleming out there as kind of a soft-tossing lefty against a good Astros lineup that's very righty-heavy, they're asking for trouble. I think the Rays can bullpen it and mix and match with their own pitching with the best of them. We know that. But I think Houston's going to hit Fleming if that's the plan. And I think that's going to be the difference. So I'm going to take Houston in the AL game. I'm going to take the Dodgers like everybody else on the NL side. I mean, the Braves pitching early is just a

train wreck. So unless they hit Kershaw, which is possible, I've seen that happen in the postseason, I think they're in trouble. I think we're going into the weekend with a 2-2 series on the NL side. But yeah, I think we're getting two games on Friday night. I'm looking forward to two more. One of the ways that Kershaw has been hurt in the past

is by them leaving him in too long. Yes. I wonder if that temptation is greater given some of the things we've been talking about too, right? Where you just say, I don't really want to go into the bullpen yet. Don't want to get three relievers deep if we can only go two relievers deep. I mean, sure, that's what it's been. I don't think that these Dodgers bullpens have been as good as, say,

like the Yankees bullpens or the Rays bullpen is now. We've talked about this a lot. I don't want to talk about it anymore. But, you know, like I think the temptation will be to leave Kershaw in for like the sixth inning or to finish off the fifth like Ranky today. And that's usually, if you look at the source of his home run problem in the playoffs, Kershaw, it's always been in the last inning. Yeah, exactly. And you're right. It's the home run problem in the playoffs. Yes. Kershaw, it's always been in the last inning. Yeah, exactly.

And you're right. It's the home run problem. It's not like he gets single to death where you have enough time to take him out. It's a change on a dime, quick thing. So yeah, that'll be fascinating to watch. No more Dodgers bullpen talk. It was abbreviated.

It was only about 60 seconds today. So I think we did a good job keeping that in check. There you have it. Our predictions for Thursday's matchups. If you're enjoying this show on a platform that allows you to rate and review it, please take a moment to do that. We'd greatly appreciate it. If you're still looking for that subscription to The Athletic, get it for $1 a month. Theathletic.com slash ratesandbarrels is the best deal we have going right now. Get all the Brits articles, all of Eno-wide coverage everything we do all for one low price as always you can reach us via email rates in barrels at theathletic.com on twitter he's at you know sarah she's at brit underscore droly i am at derrick van riper that is going to wrap things up for this episode of rates and barrels we are back with you on friday Thanks for listening.