What started as a party turned into a nail-biter, a game once seemingly headed for a blowout instead becoming an immediate October stress test.
The Dodgers know they don’t have a traditional pitching staff.
They don’t care about their unsettled situation in the ninth inning.
During a franchise-record 111-win season, it rarely mattered — not when veteran closer Craig Kimbrel battled maddening inconsistency for most of the year, and not when they removed him from the role a month ago in favor of a closer-by-committee approach.
All along, they insisted this is the best October bullpen they’ve had in years, that they have the kind of trustworthy depth and versatile, late-inning weapons to navigate a playoff run without a defined hierarchy at the end of games.
On Tuesday, during their playoff opener in the National League Division Series against the San Diego Padres, they got an unexpected evaluation after watching a big, early lead dwindle to two runs.
But, in a 5-3 victory in front of a sold-out Dodger Stadium, an unlikely quartet of relievers backed up their faith by finishing off a Game 1 win.
Evan Phillips, Alex Vesia, Brusdar Graterol and Chris Martin combined for four scoreless innings out of the bullpen to give the Dodgers a 1-0 lead in this best-of-five NLDS.
Phillips retired the heart of the Padres order in the sixth. Vesia and Graterol paired in the eighth to do the same. Then in the ninth, it was Martin who came trotting to the mound, with the once-unheralded trade-deadline acquisition bringing Chavez Ravine to its feet with his first career playoff save.
Game 2 will be Wednesday night at 5:37 p.m.
And the Dodgers should enter it with unbridled belief in their options out of the bullpen.
Early on Tuesday night, it seemed unlikely the relievers would factor into the final decision.
The Dodgers surged to an early 5-0 lead behind Trea Turner’s solo homer and RBI doubles by Will Smith and Gavin Lux. Julio Urías was rolling in his first career Game 1 start. And for the first four innings, the 52,407 in attendance were joyously waving blue rally towels through the crisp, fall air.
But then, the game changed directions.
Urías lost his groove in the fifth inning, giving up three runs to bring his night to an early end. The Dodgers lineup fell silent against a string of Padres pitchers, failing to score after a three-run outburst in the third inning.
As a result, after weeks of declarations about this being the Dodgers’ deepest crop of relievers in his seven-year tenure as manager, Dave Roberts had to put his trust in them.
Phillips was first up, facing the Padres’ best hitters, Juan Soto and Manny Machado, to lead off the sixth inning.
The right-hander, who had been the Dodgers’ best reliever during a breakthrough season, got into trouble. Soto drew a leadoff walk. Machado got aboard as the tying run on a dribbler that stayed fair up the third base line.
But then Phillips rebounded. He fanned pinch-hitter Josh Bell with a 2-and-2 cutter. He then got Wil Myers to hit a ground ball to second, where Lux and shortstop Turner turned a difficult double play to put a jolt back into an increasingly anxious stadium.
Vesia was summoned next. In the seventh, the left-hander stranded a two-out single by striking out the side. In the eighth, he returned to the bump to retire Jurickson Profar, a switch-hitter, and Soto, the left-handed-hitting superstar slugger acquired by the Padres at the trade deadline.
With Machado up next, Roberts brought in Graterol, a hard-throwing right-hander, to face the slugger, who finished the regular season as a candidate for NL most valuable player.
It took only one pitch for Graterol to win the battle, inducing a flyout to left that ended the inning.
That left the ninth for Martin, whose season took off following his deadline-week acquisition from the Chicago Cubs.
He had never pitched in the ninth inning of a playoff game, and had only one previous postseason hold.
Yet he handled the pressure with ease, giving up only a soft, two-out single to Jake Cronenworth before ending the game with a Ha-Seong Kim flyout on the very next pitch.
Last season, the Dodgers ran out of pitching this time of the year.
After an intense, and ultimately unsuccessful, division race in the regular season, and elongated path through the playoffs as a wild card, their staff wore down en route to an NLCS elimination.
That as much as anything, they’ve since claimed in hindsight, prevented them from a defense of their 2020 World Series title.
The fact they’d avoided a similar predicament this year, instead entering the playoffs as the top overall seed, fueled their optimism in reaching the mountaintop again.
“Last year, I thought we were taxed going into the postseason, and rightfully so,” Roberts said Tuesday, hours before first pitch. “Right now, we feel good right where we’re at. Very prepared.”
He cited the depth of the pitching staff as one of the primary reasons.
On the first night of the postseason, at least, that confidence was vindicated.
They not only began this October climb with an important first step, but found stable footing in the form of their bullpen, as well.
