The 2024 Dodgers famously won the World Series in spite of their pitching, not because of it. Last year’s group had a 4.50 October ERA, one of the highest marks of any Series-winning teams ever, and you probably remember the various mound contortions they had to go through just to get the ring. Such as: the bullpen games in NLDS Game 4, NLCS Games 2 and 6, and Game 4 of the World Series, when they were so shorthanded that they made Ben Casparius just the second pitcher in history to have his first career start come in the World Series.
They were so thin in the rotation, as it turns out, that starters threw just 42% of their postseason innings, the fewest of any champion in AL/NL history. (Which is a somewhat unfair historical comparison, given that for decades the entire postseason was potentially just four games long, but still: fewest is fewest.)
The 2025 Dodgers won’t do that. They may have the opposite issue: Their bullpen is a mess, yet suddenly, they might have more starting pitching than they know what to do with. After months of injuries and inconsistent performance, the Dodgers over the last 30 days have been the best pitching staff in the game.
Should they keep up their 31% strikeout rate through the rest of September, it would be the highest whiff month by any team in any full month since 2019. Should they keep up their .171 average allowed, it would be the lowest ever. It is, mostly, due to the rotation, which has managed this somewhat incredible usage turnaround:
- Through Aug. 15: Fewest starting pitching innings thrown
- Since Aug. 16: Third-most starting pitching innings thrown
That might have been what you expected from this group in March, when they were riding high off a big-spending winter. It very much was not what you were thinking in June, when at one point the Dodgers were so thin that they were forced to bullpen two of three games in San Diego – and the staff as a whole had the 8th-highest ERA and 7th-lowest strikeout rate.
Keeping up those September numbers will be hard to do, obviously, because the Phillies can hit, and so can the D-backs, Giants, and Mariners. In two weeks, we’ll probably not be talking about this month in historic terms. But that we’re even talking like this right now tells you just how quickly things have changed after months of what can charitably be described as “a disappointing slog,” insomuch as a season still likely to end with a division title can be termed ‘disappointing.’
What if this year’s Dodgers postseason run is defined by something completely unexpected: old-school starting pitching?
If last year’s run was about a staff held together with duct tape and chewing gum, this year was going to be different. Over the winter, the Dodgers added Roki Sasaki, Blake Snell, Tanner Scott, and Kirby Yates, to the howls of many who didn’t quite get that an already tattered staff had then lost Jack Flaherty and Walker Buehler, who’d started three of the five World Series games, to free agency (as well as Clayton Kershaw).
Along with the two rotation imports, a returning Yoshinobu Yamamoto, and a re-signed Kershaw, the team expected more availability from Tyler Glasnow, Dustin May, Tony Gonsolin, Bobby Miller, Emmett Sheehan, and Gavin Stone, none of whom was active last fall. Oh: And Shohei Ohtani would be back on the mound at some point, too. When FanGraphs ranked them as baseball’s best rotation before the season, it wasn’t hard to see why.
This time, it was going to be different. But then it wasn’t.
Snell made just two starts before injuring his shoulder, Glasnow five, and Sasaki only eight mostly unimpressive outings before going down for months with a shoulder problem as well. May was largely ineffective, then got traded. Gonsolin made seven starts before being lost for the season; Stone was never seen at all. Miller spent most of the year posting an ERA near 6 … in Triple-A. As of Tuesday, Yamamoto is the only Dodger to throw even 110 innings. Every other team has at least two. Most have three.
Then again, what happened in May and June doesn’t really have much impact on short series in October, when much depends on who’s healthy and playing well right then, and that couldn’t look more different for the Dodger rotation.
Consider this run of returns from those who were unavailable for large chunks of the season.
- Kershaw, returned May 17 (3.53 ERA, 17% K in 20 games).
- Ohtani, returned June 16 (3.75 ERA, 33% K in 12 games).
- Glasnow, returned July 9 (2.66 ERA, 29% K in 11 starts).
- Snell, returned Aug 2 (2.97 ERA, 32% K in 7 starts).
- Sheehan, joined rotation July 6 (3.23 ERA, 28% K in 12 games).
Ohtani’s ERA belies the underlying performance – one-third of his earned runs came in a single game in Coors Field – but at the moment, the only remaining starters on the injured list who had been expected to contribute this year in any capacity are Sasaki, Stone, and Gonsolin.
With Yamamoto making a star turn of his own – he’s allowed three earned runs in his last three starts combined, and seems likely to finish in the Top 5 in NL Cy Young balloting – the last month has been a lot closer to what was expected in March, which leaves manager Dave Roberts with a good problem to have in a likely Wild Card Series, which is “too many good rotation options.”
… which might, then, turn into a roster that looks more like the 2019 Nationals than the 2024 Dodgers.
That team had bullpen problems of their own, leading Davey Martinez to rely on essentially three starters (Stephen Strasburg, Max Scherzer, and Aníbal Sánchez), one starter who regularly came in to relieve (Patrick Corbin), and exactly two relievers in the “circle of trust,” in Sean Doolittle and Daniel Hudson. That group collected 67% of their innings from starters, easily the highest of the multiple Wild Card era, and even that figure would be higher if you consider all of Corbin’s relief appearances as “starter innings.”
The Dodgers could do that too, with Sheehan moving down, though here’s where it gets tricky: the recently effective relievers heavily lean to left-handers, with Alex Vesia, Justin Wrobleski, Jack Dreyer, and Anthony Banda all southpaws. (Plus righty flamethrower Edgardo Henriquez.) It’s difficult to see veterans Scott, Yates, or Michael Kopech being entrusted in big moments at this point. Blake Treinen has been shaky as well, though it’s not quite as bad as it seems; he’s allowed more than one run just twice since his own return from injury in late July.
All of which leads to a few very fascinating questions:
- Would Kershaw really be used in relief – or left off the roster entirely? He’s been effective, but it’s hard to argue he’s one of their best starters or that the ‘pen needs another lefty.
- Can Glasnow or Ohtani be used in relief? The complications of Ohtani’s DH role makes trying to find time to warm up in-game tricky, but Glasnow hasn’t appeared in relief since 2018.
- Is Sasaki still an option? The results have been just OK in his rehab stint, but in his last outing in relief, Sasaki regularly touched 100 mph with the nasty splitter that had been so advertised.
It’s not the Dodger team that was promised, or feared. It’s also not the sputtering group from a few weeks ago, either, not with Mookie Betts finally getting hot and the rotation as good as it’s ever looked.
It is, apparently, something different. It’s a team with a clear, obvious weakness in the bullpen, and a sudden wealth of starting pitching. It might be something in October that we would rarely use to describe this roster: old-school.