Can Dodgers win the WS with 2 starters?

Can the Dodgers really navigate this World Series with only two experienced starting pitchers?

That remains their intention after Wednesday night’s 6-4 loss to the Rays at Globe Life Field in Game 2, the first bullpen game of the Series but probably not their last.

Game	Date	Result	Highlights
Gm 1	Oct. 20	LAD 8, TB 3	Watch
Gm 2	Oct. 21	TB 6, LAD 4	Watch
Gm 3	Oct. 23	LAD 6, TB 2	Watch
Gm 4	Oct. 24	TB 8, LAD 7	Watch
Gm 5	Oct. 25	LAD 4, TB 2	Watch
Gm 6	Oct. 27	LAD 3, TB 1	Watch

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With Walker Buehler, set to be the Game 3 starter, and Clayton Kershaw, the Game 1 winner, having started eight of the club’s 14 postseason games, the Dodgers will continue to lean heavily on those two as they try to collect four wins en route to a championship.

But there’s little room for error within that blueprint, as was evidenced in Wednesday’s loss, when seven relievers combined to allow 10 hits as the Rays evened the best-of-seven series.

Yet, with Buehler, hybrid swingman Julio Urías and Kershaw starting the next three games on adequate rest, outside panic was not shared by the manager. That’s in large part due to the emergence of Urías, who was splendid over a one-run start of five innings in the National League Championship Series and then retired the final nine batters in Game 7 to push the Dodgers back to the World Series.

He wasn’t able to start sooner in this Series because of those three innings he pitched to save Sunday’s clincher. His Game 4 start will be just his second postseason start this year.

“We feel great,” manager Dave Roberts said. “We've got Walker going, we’ve got Julio going and then we've got Clayton. You look at kind of where our relievers are set with the off-day tomorrow, we're in a great spot.”

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Optimism is Roberts’ calling card and if that part of the plan is on point, he’s right. He knows the Game 3 winner in best-of-seven series tied 1-1 has gone on to win the series 65 of 94 times (69.1%). And he’s got a flexible weapon in Urías, once handled with kid gloves but now capable of being unleashed from starter to closer. But another part of the plan is worrisome. That’s the part where the club leans heavily on rookies that pitched like veterans on the winningest team in the regular season, but are pitching like rookies with everything on the line.

In the regular season, Tony Gonsolin had an ERA of 2.31. His postseason ERA is 9.39 after opening Game 2, allowing a Brandon Lowe home run and being removed after six batters. Except for injured pitchers, it was the shortest stint by a starting pitcher in a World Series game allowing no more than one run since at least 1947.

Dustin May, with a regular-season ERA of 2.57, has a 5.00 postseason ERA after allowing three runs in 1 1/3 innings Wednesday night, including Lowe’s second home run, a two-run shot. May has made six postseason appearances -- three as an opener, three in relief, but none longer than two innings.

Fellow rookie Victor González was also charged with a run Wednesday on a two-run double by Joey Wendle that took off on right fielder Mookie Betts. In total, seven pitchers were summoned, none going more than two innings for Roberts.

“I think that I still trust them, I still believe in them and they've just got to make pitches,” Roberts said of Gonsolin and May. “I know that they want to make pitches, execute pitches. We'll kind of look at the video and see what we can do better at, but they're still going to need to get big outs for us.”

How is a juggernaut of a team with a national reputation for the deepest roster in the game so thin in starting pitching?

This year’s postseason format, with seven NLCS games in seven days, is part of the explanation. But it also goes back to last winter, when the Dodgers let go of veteran starters Hyun Jin Ryu, Kenta Maeda and Rich Hill to make room in the rotation for the prized pair of Gonsolin and May.

For protection, the club took on the contract of David Price in the Betts trade, knowing his leadership and October experience would come in handy about now. But because of the pandemic, Price decided not to play.

Then Alex Wood, re-signed to be the fifth starter, got injured. Ross Stripling struggled and was traded at the Deadline.

The Dodgers barely felt the speed bumps during the season with a comfortable lead and a soft schedule. But there’s nothing soft about the Rays, especially if Lowe is finally getting hot.

Management hasn’t made it easy on Gonsolin and May, who entered the season as the team's two best pitching prospects after impressive callups last year. This year’s postseason format, with a two-game sweep followed by a three-game sweep, resulted in Gonsolin idling for 17 days before his Game 2 start in the NLCS, when he allowed five runs in 4 1/3 innings. Then he allowed two runs in two innings of relief in the Game 7 NLCS clincher before Wednesday night’s opener assignment.

During the regular season, 10 of May’s 12 appearances were starts, while eight of Gonsolin’s nine appearances were starts. Gonsolin was told on Tuesday night he would pitch Wednesday night after pitching on Sunday night, an assignment he learned of that afternoon. Roberts conceded the switching of roles, while born of necessity, heightens the challenge.

“Yeah, you know it's a big ask, to be quite frank,” he said. “Right now with the off-days every team is going to go down a starter, so that's one thing. And so people have to adjust to certain roles. And when you're talking about playing seven days in a row and how you can get as many outs as you can in the [NLCS] -- yeah, these guys are in uncharted territory and a credit to them, they're not making excuses, they expect themselves to make pitches. It's different, certainly. But we still need those guys to get important outs going forward for us to win this thing.”

If the Dodgers don’t win the next three games, another bullpen game looms for Game 6 and Roberts didn’t rule out Wood, who threw two scoreless innings on Wednesday, as the opener.