The Brewers and Dodgers kick off the National League Championship Series in less than an hour. Each team made one change to the rosters from their respective Division Series.
Milwaukee made a move in the bullpen, swapping out Nick Mears for Tobias Myers. General manager Matt Arnold told reporters the decision was mostly about adding length to the pitching staff (link via MLB.com’s Adam McCalvy). Mears has only once completed two innings in a game this season. All but five of his 63 appearances have been a single inning or less. Myers has been a starter for much of his career and was working a handful of 2-3 inning stints in long relief down the stretch. The Brewers will lean heavily on their relievers, especially in games not started by Freddy Peralta, and have Aaron Ashby kicking off a bullpen game tonight.
Still, it comes as a moderate surprise that the hard-throwing Mears gets left off the roster entirely. Over the course of the season, only Trevor Megill entered the game in higher-leverage spots on average for skipper Pat Murphy. Mears was third on the team with 16 holds. He’d also pitched three times in the five-game Division Series win over the Cubs, tossing 1 2/3 scoreless frames while striking out three of seven batters faced. Mears missed a couple weeks in September with back tightness, but Arnold suggested the decision was less a health question and more about the need for multi-inning arms in a seven-game set.
The Dodgers also made a change, adding a 12th pure pitcher after carrying 11 pitchers (not including Shohei Ohtani) and 15 position players for their series against the Phillies. Right-hander Ben Casparius draws in while the team subs out third catcher Dalton Rushing. That’s most notable as a positive sign for Will Smith. The Dodgers were apprehensive about having Smith catch early in the Philly series. The star backstop came off the bench as a pinch-hitter for the first two games as he plays through a finger fracture.
Smith caught the last two games in full and apparently showed enough that the Dodgers no longer feel they need to keep Rushing active behind Smith and Ben Rortvedt. The 24-year-old Rushing struck out in a pinch-hit at-bat in his only appearance during the Division Series. Casparius adds a mop-up option to the bullpen after pitching to a 4.64 earned run average across 77 2/3 innings during the regular season. He pitched very well for the first two months but posted a 6.31 ERA in 27 appearances after June 1.
The full rosters break down as follows:
Brewers
Catchers: William Contreras, Danny Jansen
Infielders: Jake Bauers, Caleb Durbin, Andruw Monasterio, Joey Ortiz, Brice Turang, Andrew Vaughn
Outfielders: Jackson Chourio, Isaac Collins, Sal Frelick, Brandon Lockridge, Blake Perkins, Christian Yelich
Right-Handers: Grant Anderson, Trevor Megill, Jacob Misiorowski, Tobias Myers, Chad Patrick, Freddy Peralta (Game 2 starter), Quinn Priester, Abner Uribe
Left-Handers: Aaron Ashby (Game 1 opener), Robert Gasser, Jared Koenig, José Quintana
Dodgers
Catchers: Ben Rortvedt, Will Smith
Infielders: Mookie Betts, Tommy Edman, Freddie Freeman, Hyeseong Kim, Max Muncy, Miguel Rojas
Outfielders: Alex Call, Justin Dean, Kiké Hernández, Teoscar Hernández, Andy Pages
Two-Way Player: Shohei Ohtani
Right-Handers: Ben Casparius, Tyler Glasnow, Roki Sasaki, Emmet Sheehan, Blake Treinen, Yoshinobu Yamamoto (Game 2 starter)
Left-Handers: Anthony Banda, Jack Dreyer, Clayton Kershaw, Blake Snell (Game 1 starter), Alex Vesia, Justin Wrobleski
The guessing game over which of Kim or Dean make the NLCS roster is over. It’s both. Rushing is the odd man out.
Crazy that the Brewers will likely throw 2, and possibly 3 bullpen games depending on how long this series goes. Crazy how much the game has changed. We’re a long way from Jack Morris vs. John Smoltz.
They’ll probably do a bullpen game in every game Peralta doesn’t start
I was thinking they would give Priester or Mis a start, but you might be right. Patrick isn’t starting. I wanna make fun of them for the lack of rotation depth, but I’m a Cubs fan who just watched their bullpen game, shut us down in the biggest game of the year, and they are still playing baseball while I wait for free agency to start…..mainly because of our lack of rotation depth.
Dodgers are going to have to dance to avoid a bullpen game of their own (or Kershaw start), given the extra rest the Japanese pitchers need.
Snell, Yama, Glasnow, and Shohei seems like how they’ll go here. They should have normal starting pitching games 1-4, and then reset. I doubt Kershaw gets a start, unless he himself is used more as an opener. Then again, 3/4 of those guys tend to be pretty fragile, so who knows. All things considered, I’m going LAD in 5 in the NLCS. Just too much fire power for MIL. Hopefully Dumper and the M’s can beat those boys, because aside from Dodger fans, I think I can safely speak for the rest of the planet, and say ANYONE but LA winning would be just fine.
God I hope the dodgers lose
bkbk – The Brewers have their secret weapon front row behind home plate again tonight. The lovely brunette who keeps score immediately after every pitch. Amy Williams, talk about the perfect woman ;O)
Front Row Amy remains on the Brewers roster.
It’s nice to Pages swing at ball five to ground out.
There’s a dark haired cougar sitting behind home plate I can’t take my eyes off.