A return to a mentality of giving the starter the ball and running with him seems to be returning to Major League Baseball this postseason.

For about a year, the starting pitching for the Los Angeles Dodgers has been difficult to identify. The starters we knew in 2024 have been on the injured list. And the starters we didn’t know have rarely been able to go more than three or four innings. In Shohei Ohtani‘s case, the Dodgers didn’t get more than an inning from him for about a month and only got five innings from him at the very end of the season Add to that a near-daily quick hook by manager, Dave Roberts, and you have a bullpen that pitched the second-most innings in major-league baseball this year.

Last year saw much the same situation and this very writer predicted the Dodgers to lose the World Series because of them and a lack of starting pitching. I think we all know how that turned out.

The difference, unfortunately for L.A., is that this group of relievers started wearing out around August 1. For the year, they had the sixth worst earned run average in 68 years in Los Angeles, according to the L.A. Times.

Alex Vesia, Blake Treinen, and Jack Dreyer were among those who were finding new and amazing ways to lose games. Yoshinobu Yamamoto had a perfect game with two out in the ninth inning against the Orioles in September. He gave up a solo home run. Roberts pulled him and the Dodgers bullpen never got the final out, while allowing three runs to score.

Roberts tried to give the bullpen opportunities, but those attempts blew up in his face. Their ERA in the postseason this year? Try 5.91

So, with a starting staff that is healthy again and very well-rested, Roberts appears to now be channeling his inner Wyatt Earp as he wades into the relief corps creek and the word, “Nooooooo” emanating somewhat psychotically from his lips.

The game has returned to the early 1980s version and which the starter gives everything he has pitch counts and matchups be damned. The Dodgers are going with their best pitchers. Period. Game 2 of the National League Championship Series: Yamamoto threw 109 pitches and became the first Dodger pitcher in more than two decades to have a complete game playoff victory.

Spitter contributor, Mike Marando, hopes this and other successes by pitchers being allowed to go deeper in games reverses some of the tide of over-reliance on the bullpen. 

Marando: “The (September 30) Yankees vs. Red Sox game illustrates my point about too much emphasis on pitch counts. (It was Game 1 of the American League Wildcard series). The Red Sox certainly didn’t blink and left their ace, Garrett Crochet, in for 118 pitches into the 8th. (On the other side), Max Fried was pitching an absolute gem. He was removed at 6 1/3 innings and 102 pitches with a man on, leading 1-0.. Aaron Boone blinked. I’ll tell you what, Fried should’ve pulled a Madison Bumgarner and waved Boone back into the goddamn dugout. You’re in the best of three series. You leave your ace in there. That decision meant they not only faced elimination, but they used both their closer and their two set-up guys. Aaron Boone has repeatedly done this throughout the season. Max Fried was a 19 game winner, arguably the best right hander in the American league. And this is the confidence you place in him?”

Two nights later wunderkind Cam Sclittler was doing his best impression of Gerrit Cole for the Yankees and Boone showed he was paying attention. Instead of looking at a spreadsheet, he looked at the rookie’s pitch quality and the ability of Boston to make contact. Boone rode the hot hand when the rookie got in trouble in the seventh, but had a lead. Schlittler got out of it and Boone ran him there for the eighth. The kid finished with 12 strikeouts, no runs, and a win on 107 pitches. 

Roberts no doubt was emboldened by a bullpen that keeps pouring gasoline on fires. Regardless of pitch counts or numbers of batters faced or numbers of times through the lineup, there was no reason whatsoever to remove Blake Snell from NLCS Game 1. Snell went eight innings and gave up just a single hit. After the game he would say it was the best game he ever pitched. 

During the broadcast of that game, Ron Darling made a crack about 100 pitches being an arbitrary number. Maybe so. But it is right around there that pitchers often start getting hit. It’s also the third or fourth time through the lineup. So, is it a case of fatigue or better pitch recognition? Or both? Regardless, the Brewers weren’t recognizing squat against either pitcher. 

The starter is the starter for a reason. The guys in the bullpen are there to provide a favorable matchup when the starter is out of gas. Marando agrees that there is a time to pull a starter, but managers and statisticians who can’t judge effectiveness, control, and energy level are doing their teams a disservice every time they pull a pitcher too soon. 

Marando: “I also believe that the playoffs and World Series bring an adrenaline dynamic that the metrics do not translate. Therefore, managers have to read the room. Snell and Yamamoto didn’t even break a sweat. Yamamoto look like he could’ve pitched forever.”

With things as they stand now, don’t be surprised if Dodger starters at least are given ample opportunity from here on out to do just that.