Ben Casparius will start for the Dodgers in Game 4, but that’s not really the point, right?
For the fourth time this postseason, Dodgers manager Dave Roberts is going with a bullpen game. Twice the Dodgers have won these bullpen games — Game 4 of the NLDS against the Padres and Game 6 of the NLCS against the Mets — and in Game 2 of the NLCS, which they lost.
Ryan Brasier started the first two of those bullpen games, Michael Kopech the other. In these three games, as many as eight pitchers have appeared in a game and as few as five. Brasier has appeared in all three, as has lefty Anthony Banda. Kopech, Daniel Hudson, Landon Knack and Evan Phillips have appeared in two of them. Phillips will not appear tonight, because he’s not on the roster.
Alex Vesia, who along with Banda represents the left-handed part of the Dodgers bullpen, appeared in just the first game.
The outlier of the three games is the loss to the Mets in Game 2 of the NLCS, when Brasier gave up a run in the first and then Knack allowed five in the second en route to a 7-3 Mets victory.
In the other two, Kopech, who closed out Game 3, pitched the third inning of the game he didn’t start. As a starter, he took care of one inning.
In the wins, no pitcher went more than two full innings, and the only pitcher to go two full was Blake Treinen, who closed out clinching Game 6 of the NLCS with a six-run lead.
Unless the Yankees jump on the Dodgers early and turn it into a blowout, New York hitters are unlikely to get second looks at any of the pitchers.
And, yes, Casparius is nominally the starter. The 25-year-old right hander was the second pitcher in Game 6 of the NLCS, going 1 1/3 innings, allowing two hits and no runs. Casparius earned the win in the clincher.
Casparius started the season in Double A and spent most of his year at Triple A as a starter. The Dodgers called him up at the end of August and he made his debut on Aug. 31. When he throws his first pitch tonight, he’ll have made more postseason appearances for the Dodgers in the big leagues than regular season games. He’s still considered a prospect as a starter and throws four pitches, but he’s relied mostly on his four-seamer and slider out of the bullpen. He’ll also throw the occasional curveball. Over the course of his three appearances in the NLCS, he’s thrown the four-seam fastball 42.9 percent of the time, the slider 31.4 percent and the curveball 11.4 percent of the time.
