LOS ANGELES — Teams that open the playoffs with a best-of-three Wild Card Series are usually at a disadvantage because they have to burn their best two or three starting pitchers to advance, leaving the back end of their rotation to start the first two or three games of a best-of-five division series.
Not the Dodgers, who could start Shohei Ohtani, Blake Snell and Yoshinobu Yamamoto in a National League Wild Card Series next week and still have Tyler Glasnow, Clayton Kershaw and Emmet Sheehan available for the first two or three games of a division series.
“We’re in as good a spot [with our rotation] as we’ve been in,” Manager Dave Roberts said. “We essentially have five or six guys that you trust.”
The problem, as it has been for most of this season, is there are as many guys in the bullpen that Roberts can’t trust; the team’s much-maligned relief corps coughed up another late lead on Sunday when Blake Treinen was roughed up for three runs in the eighth inning of a 3-1 loss to the San Francisco Giants in Chavez Ravine.
Treinen was a playoff hero during the team’s 2024 run to the World Series title, going 2-0 with a 2.12 ERA in nine games in which he struck out 18 and walked four in 12⅓ innings, but the veteran right-hander is 1-7 with a 5.55 ERA in 29 games this season and has suffered the loss in five of his last seven appearances.
“At the end of the day, there are certain guys I’m going to go to in leverage, and certain guys I’m not going to go to, and my trust in him is unwavering – I still feel confident in him,” Roberts said of Treinen.
“I can’t solely bet on the person and the track record. We all need to see a couple of good outings. But most importantly, I want to see confidence out of him, and to be quite honest, I think right now he’s not as confident in himself as I am in him.”
Sheehan, on the other hand, showed extreme confidence on Sunday, allowing one hit over seven shutout innings, striking out 10 and walking none, and the right-hander was in line for a win when the Dodgers scratched across a run in the bottom of the seventh for a 1-0 lead.
But the bullpen reared its ugly head again in the eighth when Treinen gave up three runs on three hits and two walks, preventing the Dodgers from completing a four-game sweep and keeping their magic number to clinch the National League West title at three.
Sheehan, who returned from Tommy John surgery in mid-June, gave up a clean single to Rafael Devers with one out in the first and nothing else.
He hit Bryce Eldridge with a pitch to open the second inning and hit Andrew Knizner with a pitch to start the third but retired 15 straight batters – eight by strikeout – from the third through seventh innings and did not allow a Giants runner to reach second base. He needed only 84 pitches – 58 of them strikes – to complete seven innings.
“Emmet is the sweetest guy you’ll meet, but he’s a killer,” Roberts said. “He’s like Yoshinobu. I’ve known that since I’ve seen him, and then you layer in the skill set, the talent, and he’s not afraid.
“Just watching his glove-side command, he developed a slider with his changeup … I just felt like he was going to be a guy. He was my wild card all year long, so I expect big things from him in the postseason, I do.”
Could Sheehan’s postseason role include high-leverage relief outings?
“Yes, absolutely,” Roberts said. “I’m not concerned [about his lack of relief experience]. We’ve brought him out of the bullpen, used him on short rest.”
The Dodgers snapped a scoreless tie in the seventh when Max Muncy opened with a walk off Giants rookie right-hander Trevor McDonald, took second on Andy Pages’ single to right field and scored on Michael Conforto’s RBI single to left.
Both runners advanced on Miguel Rojas’ sacrifice bunt, but the Dodgers were unable to tack on, as Eldridge, the San Francisco first baseman, made a diving catch to his left of pinch-hitter Tommy Edman’s low line drive and threw across the diamond to complete an inning-ending double play.
Three batters into the eighth, the lead was gone. Christian Koss opened with a dribbler to third base for a single off of Treinen, Drew Gilbert singled to right, and pinch-hitter Patrick Bailey drove an RBI ground-rule double to right for a 1-1 tie.
Heliot Ramos flied to shallow right, the runners holding, and Devers was walked intentionally to load the bases. Willy Adames won a nine-pitch battle, taking a full-count, 94 mph sinker inside for a walk to force in a run for a 2-1 lead, and Bailey scored on Matt Chapman’s groundout to shortstop for a 3-1 lead.
“Everyone knows how good Blake is – everyone saw what he did last year throughout the regular season leading into the postseason,” Dodgers catcher Dalton Rushing said. “He’s special. He’s got special stuff.
“That one hurts a little bit. I feel like I didn’t do a good enough job navigating him. But we just got into some tough situations, trying to fill up the zone early. I think the main message moving forward is, let’s get strike one and let your stuff kind of play its best.”