The Dodgers are looking increasingly likely to play in the National League Wild Card Game, and there is thus a question that everybody is asking: Given the Dodgers have the best one-two punch in baseball (two-one, really, but the American lexicon isn’t ready for that conversation), how should they best use it?
Clearly, Max Scherzer will open for Joe Kelly. But how long will he go?
Part of the advantage Kelly affords managers (this is why Scherzer has been so successful since coming to Los Angeles) is that the mere threat of him entering the game has been known to cause opponents to literally lose control of their bowels. Why do you think baseball clubhouses are connected to the dugout by a tunnel? It’s so there’s a space, with drains, in which players can lose control of their bowels because Joe Kelly might soon enter the game. Why do teams bring extra pairs of pants on road trips? Joe Kelly and bowels. Why did Ben Franklin invent the diaper? Joe Kelly. Bowels.
Paradoxically, then, using Joe Kelly for multiple innings might not be necessary, at least not if you’re trying to maximize the quantity of excrement that the St. Louis Cardinals’ moms’ washing machines have to deal with when they get home. But, given Kelly’s sometimes better in innings earlier than the ninth, I’d suggest having Scherzer start, go seven innings, and then turn it over to Kelly for one. After Kelly, St. Louis should be weeping too violently (in both admiration and terror) to continue for the ninth anyway.
