The Dodgers’ early-season bullpen usage had become so much of a concern in recent days, even minor-league pitcher Matt Sauer was keeping tabs on it from the team’s triple-A Oklahoma City affiliate.
Which is why, when he took the mound following a call-up to the majors Tuesday night, he was determined to give the team some badly needed length.
“Even when we’re down in OKC, you still follow the big-league club,” Sauer said. “And I knew the bullpen has been used a lot.”
Indeed, entering Tuesday, no MLB team had relied upon its relievers this season more heavily than the Dodgers. Thanks to injuries and ineffectiveness from the starting rotation, their bullpen’s 126 innings were far and away the most in the majors.
Despite that, the club had no choice but to deploy a second designated bullpen game of its opening month on Tuesday.
Only this time, they were able to stay away from their most important arms.
Instead, in a 15-2 win over the Miami Marlins, Sauer came to the rescue with five innings of relief, providing the type of length that has too often eluded Dodgers starters through the first stretch of this campaign.
“Coming into today, I had a goal of at least five innings,” said Sauer, a 26-year-old right-hander who earned his first MLB victory in the outing. “[I wanted to] help the boys down in the ‘pen a little bit.”
Shohei Ohtani reacts toward the bullpen after homering in the first inning.
(Gina Ferazzi / Los Angeles Times)
As early-season pitching injuries have piled up for the Dodgers, the bullpen has been strained in order to compensate.
Entering Tuesday, only 10 teams had even topped 110 innings from relievers this year. The Dodgers had six relievers with more than 13 innings pitched individually. No other club had more than four.
“I think the thing that’s probably most disconcerting, is the bullpen leading Major League Baseball in bullpen innings,” manager Dave Roberts said Monday, after Tyler Glasnow became the latest member of the starting staff to land on the injured list.
“That’s where my head is at,” Roberts added, “as far as making sure we don’t red-line these guys.”
That will be no easy task over the next couple of weeks. Starting Friday, the Dodgers will play 19 games in a 20-day stretch. And with Glasnow and Blake Snell currently on the IL, they will begin it with just four healthy starters on their active roster.
“We thought our starters would be a position of strength for us from a workload standpoint, and unfortunately we lead all of baseball in innings for relievers,” pitching coach Mark Prior said Tuesday afternoon. “Sometimes that’s a good thing. But this early in the year, it’s probably not.”
Especially not after what the relievers did last October, combining for 82 innings in a grueling World Series run.
“Guys did some really heavy lifting,” Prior said.
And a short offseason only gave them so much time to recover.
Evan Phillips and Michael Kopech both started the season on the injured list, nursing injuries they sustained in the playoffs. While Phillips has since returned, another key member of last year’s, Blake Treinen, has since gone down with a forearm strain.
It made Tuesday a seemingly daunting task, with the Dodgers opting for the type of bullpen-game strategy they used so often last October.
But then, in an unexpected twist, Sauer was able to provide a well-timed reprieve.
After rookie left-hander Jack Dreyer took down the first two innings, giving up a lone run after Teoscar Hernández misplayed a ball in right field, Sauer found a groove in his 78-pitch outing. He gave up just one run on five hits. He recorded four strikeouts. And, most importantly, he achieved his goal of eating up five innings.
“I can’t say enough about his performance,” Roberts said. “We needed every bit of it, considering where our pen is at.”
It also allowed the Dodgers (20-10) to go to work at the plate, where they set season-highs in runs, hits (18) and walks (eight) en route to their most lopsided victory of the season.
Shohei Ohtani led the game off with a home run, his seventh of the season and first since returning from the paternity list last week.
Hernández atoned for his defensive miscue with two run-scoring doubles, tying him with Aaron Judge for the most RBIs in the majors with 29.
Mookie Betts had a two-run single as part of a two-hit performance, raising his batting average to .240 as he continues to try and snap his opening-month slump.
And former Cy Young-winning Marlins starter Sandy Alcantara never found his footing, exiting in the third inning with the Dodgers ahead 7-1.
“Recently, it just seems like team-wise we’re beating a starter, creating stressful innings, taking walks, [and] situationally we’ve been good,” Roberts said. “This is what we potentially can do. You just give yourself a fighting chance when you can kind of take those at-bats.”
The game got so out of hand late, the Dodgers didn’t even need to use a real pitcher in the ninth inning. Instead, after low-leverage right-hander Luis García pitched the eighth, utilityman Kiké Hernández took the mound for the final three outs, a plastic “pitching helmet” covering his cap.
“To stay away from some other leverage guys was big,” Roberts said, “and puts us in a good spot.”
Not only for Wednesday’s series finale, but also the taxing stretch of schedule to follow thereafter.
