The 2024 Major League Baseball postseason continues Friday with Game 5 of the National League Division Series between the Los Angeles Dodgers and San Diego Padres. The Dodgers won a win-or-go-home Game 4 on Wednesday to force a deciding Game 5 at Dodger Stadium on Friday. The winner will face the New York Mets in the Championship Series. The loser goes home.
The first pitch of Game 5 is scheduled for 8:08 PM ET. To set the scene for this pivotal contest, let’s ask one key question for each team heading into Friday’s event.
Dodgers: How aggressive will they be with their bullpen?
I can tell you the answer to this question: very. Yoshinobu Yamamoto started Game 5 and didn’t pitch well in Game 1, allowing five runs in three innings. Yamamoto has not thrown more than 79 pitches in a game since returning from a shoulder injury in early September. The Dodgers clearly aren’t looking for him to throw seven innings and 100 pitches. The question is, will they push him as far as he can go, or are they looking for him to get through the lineup once, and that’s it?
“How Yoshinobu is a part of [Game 5]“We’re still talking about it,” Dodgers manager Dave Roberts said Thursday. “I think the main variable is seeing our guys go out there today, play catch, see how they feel, which will give us more information about ultimately who’s bearing the brunt of the game.”
The Dodgers ran the bullpen out of necessity in Game 4 — they have seven starting pitchers on the injured list — and it worked very well. They used eight pitchers, none for more than five teams, and held the Padres scoreless on seven hits and two walks. No Padres hitter has faced a pitcher more than once. That’s the point of the bullpen, right? Not giving the hitter the same look multiple times. Every racket swing presents a new challenge. There is no familiarity.
“He’s a big part of it,” Roberts said of the successful Game 4 run that factored into the Game 5 pitching plan. “And also, I feel like we can mix things up like trails and runs again because of the neutrality and confidence of our pen. But after what they did [in Game 4] “It makes everyone feel very confident going into Game 5.”
How long Yamamoto stays in the game will have as much to do with Yamamoto as anything else. If he comes out of the gate well, the Dodgers will take as many points as possible. But, if he falters as he did in Game 1 and all year against the Padres (13 pitches in nine innings in three starts), Roberts could get a quick hook. Bullpen games can be risky; All it takes is an off day to mess things up, but this might be the Dodgers’ best chance to win Game 5.
Bonus question for the Dodgers: How healthy is Freddie Freeman? Not much, we know that much. Freeman wasn’t in the lineup for win-or-go-home Game 4, which tells you his right ankle sprain is really bad. It must have killed him to miss that game. Freeman is in the lineup for Game 5 on Friday and sits third. I think the question is not how right Freeman is; It’s how much he can contribute. He looked pretty bummed out throughout the series.
Padres: Will the offense reawaken?
The Padres scored six runs in a chaotic second inning in Game 3, a rally capped by Fernando Tatis Jr.’s giant home run. They have not registered since then. The Padres have not scored in their last 15 innings, and in those 15 innings, they have seven singles, one double, one triple, and three walks (one intentional). Only seven runners have reached second base and one has reached third base. For nearly two games now, San Diego’s bats have been silent.
“[We went] 0-for-9 with runners in scoring position. “They obviously did a good job,” Padres manager Mike Shildt said after the Game 4 loss. “So we didn’t get the proverbial big hit and really put anything together.”
It’s been a quiet series for Luis Arraez, who is 3 for 18 (.167) without a walk in the four games. It goes without saying that there should be a change in Game 5. Arraez is the hitter and catalyst up front. He’s been tasked with facing Tatis, Jurickson Profar, and Manny Machado, and has yet to do so in this series. It’s a testament to the rest of San Diego’s lineup that they made it to Game 5 without Arraez contributing much. But to beat the Dodgers, they need something from him.
As we saw in that second half of Game 4, and also in those late spells in Game 3, the Padres can flip the switch with real offensive speed. They can put runs on the board in a hurry because they have power throughout the lineup and also because they have the lowest batting average in baseball (by a lot) during the regular season. If the Padres lose, it won’t be because they swing and miss too often. After 15 straight scoreless innings in Games 3 and 4, they need the offense to wake up in Game 5.
Bonus Padres question: Can Yu Darvish do it again? Darvish was impressive in winning Game 2, turning seven innings of the ball once and needing just 82 pitches to do so. He missed most of the summer due to a personal matter and performed well after returning in September. Somehow, Darvish is in midseason form right now, while most other starters have 200 or so innings on their arm. If Darvish struggles early, Shildt will have a quick hook. Don’t be surprised if we see Game 3 starter Michael King exit the bullpen on the day of his pitch. He has spent most of his career as a setup assistant and is familiar with getting out of the bullpen.
