Shaikin: Dodgers not prioritizing victory in Game 2 of the NLCS is a risky strategy

The Dodgers did not take their best shot at winning. The baseball gods hate that.
If neither the Dodgers nor the New York Mets sweep the next three games, the National League Championship Series will return to Dodger Stadium, and the Dodgers might just run another bullpen game. Their season could be on the line that day, and they will need to make better decisions than they did on Monday.
In a short series, every game matters. On Monday, the Dodgers made decisions that were more about winning the series and less about winning the game. Sometimes that works out. Sometimes it does not. If not, the winter will be long and bitter.
First things first: This is not just me saying the Dodgers did not take their best shot at winning.
“This isn’t a winner-take-all game,” Dodgers manager Dave Roberts said after the game.
The NLCS is tied at one game apiece. The Dodgers have their only three starting pitchers lined up for the three games in New York: Walker Buehler, Yoshinobu Yamamoto and Jack Flaherty.
That left Monday’s game as a bullpen game. The Dodgers opted to start Ryan Brasier, the reliever that started the Dodgers’ last bullpen game in San Diego.
Brasier worked the first inning, giving up one run.
The Dodgers had 10 relievers on the roster Monday. With Brasier starting and Alex Vesia injured, the most trusted relievers remaining were Anthony Banda, Michael Kopech, Evan Phillips and Blake Treinen.
In the first inning, Banda was warming up behind Brasier.
In the second inning, once the Dodgers decided Brasier was done, they turned to rookie Landon Knack.
The Dodgers, remember, are running a bullpen game because they were not comfortable with Knack starting a postseason game.
So, in a one-run game, the first guy out of the bullpen should not have been Knack.
Knack gave up five runs, including a grand slam, and none of the trusted relievers rescued him. The Dodgers were down, 6-0, en route to a 7-3 defeat.
But, as they say in baseball, this is not about the results. This is about the process.
“You’re talking about the second inning right there,” Roberts said. “So you have a guy on the mound that has to eat up innings.”
In the bullpen-game victory in San Diego, Vesia and Daniel Hudson got eight outs. Roberts said Hudson was unavailable Monday — “he just had some things,” Roberts said — but declined to be specific.
“You’re going to have to take some outs from Knack,” Roberts said, “or you just are not going to finish the game.”
Again, the Dodgers had 10 relievers on their roster Monday. With Brasier starting and Hudson unavailable, that left eight relievers to cover eight innings.
The Dodgers wanted Knack to eat a few innings. In October?
In San Diego, the Dodgers smartly identified spots for the eight relievers they used in their bullpen game. They could have done the same on Monday: the most trusted relievers for the top of the Mets’ lineup; the less seasoned relievers for the bottom of the Mets’ lineup.
The Dodgers are as good as any team in baseball about making sure their relievers get proper rest during the season. But one of the reasons a team wants to make sure its relievers get proper rest during the season is so they can pitch as often as possible in October.
The Dodgers preferred to start Buehler in Game 3 rather than Game 2 because the team had an off day after Game 2. The Dodgers had a day off Saturday, two relievers that worked an inning each Sunday, and another day off Tuesday.
The three top relievers — Kopech, Phillips and Treinen — will be available Wednesday on four days rest.
Why would the Dodgers not go to their best relievers on Monday?
“You just can’t,” Roberts said. “Knack was going to have to pitch at some point in time. So whether you get through, you have four high-leverage guys available, right? You have to be able to kind of still finish four innings of a game or three innings of a game.”
The Dodgers left the stadium Monday satisfied that they had not used three top relievers, and that they scored enough to force the Mets to deploy three top relievers.
They did not leave the stadium Monday as winners. If they do not win the series, Monday will haunt them.