The best thing the Wild Card Game has given us is a guarantee of at least two single-elimination baseball games a year. Two games that are win-or-go-home for each team involved. Purists can argue about the ability of a single game to reflect a baseball team’s quality, an argument that stems from the striking difference between the at-most best-of-seven playoff system and the 162-game regular season (somewhat arbitrarily, I might add—the format is the format, and while winning in the playoffs might require a different approach than winning in the regular season, you have to prepare for both if you want to win a championship), but purists can’t deny the drama of single-elimination baseball games.
Tonight, we get our third of the year.
Heck yeah.
The Basics
Where: Oracle Park
When: 9:07 PM EDT (It’s a late start, yes, but isn’t there something charming about the angle where this is being played on the West Coast at the earliest time they could reasonably ask fans to make it by if they worked ‘til five? We still haven’t figured out how to make sports convenient for fans coast-to-coast. Localities count.)
Broadcast: TBS
Starting Pitchers: Logan Webb (SF); Julio Urías (LA)
Odds: SF -105; LA -105; o/u 7 [English translation: each team is 50% likely to win, the expected number of runs scored is seven]
The Details
Webb and Urías each have one successful start this series already, with Urías turning in a strong five innings on Saturday after Webb dominated Friday night. Webb’s performance was the best of the playoffs so far, but he’s fresh in the Dodgers’ minds, and the thing figures to be a nailbiter.
It’s going to be all hands on deck out of the bullpen, where the teams are rather evenly matched. Max Scherzer could theoretically make an appearance just two days of rest after throwing 110 pitches in Game 3. Blake Treinen threw a combined 35 pitches in Games 3 and 4 but has had a day of rest to get ready and didn’t pitch at all in Games 1 and 2. The Giants could unleash Kevin Gausman in relief, and he’d be on normal rest (Webb’s gotten an extra day, effectively). Alex Wood might be an odd choice, but if the thing drags on, he only threw 83 pitches in Game 3 and has now had two days of rest. Even Anthony DeSclafani could be available, throwing just 28 pitches in Game 4, meaning literally the entire pitching portion of the Giants’ playoff roster could be on the table.
In other availability news, Gabe Kapler has said Tommy La Stella won’t start for the Giants but will be available off the bench. As has been pointed out, La Stella might not have started the game anyway, with a left-handed pitcher on the mound, but he becomes a big bat as a prospective pinch-hitter. He’s dealing with an Achilles issue that flared up in Game 4.
The Stars
A good start by Webb could elevate his postseason to one for the books, depending how things play out from here. Gausman’s been a force all year himself, so it’s fitting that these two seem likely to carry the bulk of the load on the mound for San Francisco.
Urías hasn’t been the biggest workhorse for the Dodgers, but he reached 185.2 regular season innings and has routinely worked through the top of the opposing order three times. He, like Webb, will likely be on one of the shortest leashes imaginable.
It’s that short leash that brings up the guys who might turn into the faces of the game, bullpenners like Treinen, Kenley Jansen, and Camilo Doval. Doval, you may not know (I didn’t know—I haven’t followed Doval’s year particularly closely) spent a few midseason months in AAA before emerging for good in September, from which point on he allowed no runs across 15 appearances while notching just a 1.01 FIP. He’s closed out Games 1 and 3 already. If the Giants can go Webb-to-Gausman-to-Doval, it’d be about everything they could hope for.
Offensively…we’ll see. It’s gotta be somebody, right?
Finally, going back to that idea about single-elimination baseball still being an important kind of baseball: The managers are going to be a big deal tonight. I don’t know the role the front office generally plays in in-game decisions, or even in pre-game preparation. I don’t know the role the front office plays in those arenas for these specific teams. But at some level, it’s up to Dave Roberts and Gabe Kapler to navigate these uncertain waters, with the NLCS awaiting one and an offseason of what-if’s awaiting the other. Each man’s team has now won 109 games since the first pitch of Opening Day. Nine more to go. With the whole thing on the line tonight.
