by Cary Osborne
It wasn’t as if they were bored or rocking back and forth in recliners in the bullpen at American Family Field in Milwaukee.
There’s an order in the Dodger bullpen — don’t get caught watching the game.
Even though the task over the first two games of the National League Championship Series was to get three outs because of the outstanding deep performances of starters Blake Snell and Yoshinobu Yamamoto, the thought in the bullpen was to move around and know your potential lane to come into the game.
But Game 3 starter Tyler Glasnow, as excellent as he was, was piling up pitches on Thursday. And it was clear that the bullpen was going to be needed.
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So the final 10 outs were going to play out like this on paper — use the relievers in the trust circle, play the matchups and hand it over to Roki Sasaki to close out the ninth inning.
Just as it was drawn up.
The Dodgers beat the Brewers 3–1 on Thursday at Dodger Stadium to take a commanding 3–0 series lead in the NLCS.
And for the first time in this series, the Dodger bullpen — once maligned — was a major factor.
“We knew all along we were going to need these guys,” said manager Dave Roberts. “And these guys are delivering, which is huge. We’re doing a great job of preventing runs. And the bullpen deserves a lot of credit.”
This is how it played out on Thursday:
Glasnow earned the first 17 outs of the game. On his 99th pitch, he walked Milwaukee first baseman Andrew Vaughn with the score tied 1–1. But it set up a lane for left-hander Alex Vesia and if everything went to plan a domino effect.
Vesia, Blake Treinen and Anthony Banda had a combined five matchups where they faced like-handedness (left on left or right on right). They won all five. That covered five of the seven outs they got.
The trio allowed one baserunner.
“Obviously, we go through the scouting reports and understand where to go and whatnot,” Vesia said. “That felt like a Dodger baseball game for at least the bullpen side of things.”
Sasaki, up to Game 1 of the NLCS, was nearly untouchable through four postseason games. But he wasn’t able to close out the ninth inning on Monday, allowing a double and a walk. Treinen needed to come in to get the final out of the game in a 2–1 win.
Sasaki was back out there for the ninth in Game 3 and needed a few pitches to lock in. He also needed a superb defensive play from Mookie Betts, who ranged deep to his right on a Vaughn ground ball, snagged it and made a jump throw one-hopper to Freddie Freeman to record the first out of the ninth inning.
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Sasaki earned the final two outs, striking out third baseman Caleb Durbin to end it.
“As a starter, I understand that there’s always ups and downs. So, I kind of take that same approach with pitching as a reliever,” Sasaki said. “And I think what I try to do is just to make sure that everything, all my mechanics are in place so that I can command the ball better. And I feel like that’s what I’m really focused on right now.”
The recovery was a microcosm of a collective bullpen that had the sixth-worst bullpen ERA in September and some shaky moments in the NL Wild Card and Division Series.
“I think the bullpen has had confidence. I don’t think it’s a building time (for confidence) right now,” Banda said. “I think it’s something that we’ve established even with the rough stretches. We all believe in each other, so we’re just getting on point at the right time.”
2025 NLCS: The moment arrived for the Dodger bullpen, and it executed was originally published in Dodger Insider on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.