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.
It’s all analytics. Each team has about 30 Harvard nerds telling the manager and GM which pitchers to use and so forth. Gone are the days of pitchers throwing shutouts. And hitters hitting .350-.360 every year. The 80’s and 90’s were a good decades for baseball
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)
Gross. She’s a plastic old lady
Sometimes I thank God, for unanswered prayers…
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.
Dave Roberts and his stupid decision making at it again with taking Teo out for Dean to play defense in the 8th, and when it should be Teo up with bases loaded one out we get Call.
Agree 100%. Fire him
I got stuck in traffic on the way to work today. Stupid Dave Roberts.
What happened to DL Hall?
Fire Dave Roberts. Snell pretty much pitches a perfect game and he pulls him. 105 pitches. At least bring him in to start the ninth. Can’t expect Roki to be perfect every time out.
*Dodgers don’t bring in Roki*
“FIRE DAVE ROBERTS!”
*Dodgers do bring in Roki*
“FIRE DAVE ROBERTS!”
*Should mention they won BOTH games in question, above.
Dodger fans have not one, but several screws loose.
Reading the inane game chat comments on Reddit is more entertaining than going to a comedy club.
I agree. With the way that Snell was dealing I would have liked to see Snell go out for the 9th to secure a out or maybe two.
I don’t recall ever being so pissed off after winning a playoff game. It’s ridiculous
Dave Roberts has and will always be an imbecile. Managers normally make defensive replacements in the 9th and not in the 8th when there’s a chance that your number three hitter who was taken out of the game could come up in the 9th with the bases loaded with one out. Dave normally shows a lack of judgement in every single game.
Manager make defensive changes all the time in the 8th, if the person they’re pulling is not due up any time soon.
If the #3 spot in the order were to come up again, then the Dodgers would’ve likely already scored more runs (which they did) making that spot in the order less valuable. If they hadn’t scored, then the defensive replacement becomes more valuable. You don’t have to like to move, but it’s completely justifiable, and worked out in the end.
The “Fire Roberts” crowd has been backed into a corner so badly by Roberts’ postseason success that they have to resort to complaining about HOW he wins.
Well, we got Call batting with the bases loaded instead of Teo.
Yep, and we got Dean in the outfield instead of Teo. That’s how it works. We also scored a run. And won. But tell me more about how you would’ve managed them to a *better* win. Would we be up 2-0 in the series right now with a different manager?
You belong to the group of Dodgers fans that believe Dave is a great manager and I belong to the group of Dodgers fans that believe Dave is the dumbest man in the game. I’ll just leave it at that.
Did you see Kike standing there explaining to dave what happened on the near grand slam/double play? he literally is a confused observer most days. the team wins when he has less opportunity to try and show how clever he is. because he’s not and the immense talent has bailed him out again and again. if game 2 of the Philly series goes differently they likely don’t even make it to this series.
Like Teo is some prize. The guy pops up or whiffs with alarming regularity. You act like he’s the God of Lumber or something. Not only that, he’s a defensive liability, often doesn’t hustle, and I’m still trying wrap my head around his incredibly dumb mistake he made last night when he fell asleep at 3rd base. His IQ is likely somewhere in double digits.
Dicklers: Maybe every game you watch, which can’t be that many (or you’re just not paying attention). Another Dave Roberts hater. You’re the imbecile and you show your ignorance with the rediculous comment.
Lol…we have another Roberts defender with their feelings hurt. Cry a little harder.
Great move by Roberts bringing in Treinen to lock down the save.
I’m just glad Turang pulled his front leg away to avoid the HBP and tying run to score. Bailed out a very wild Treinen. Don’t know where the ball is going when he’s on the mound….
Just because they won doesn’t mean Dave is free of criticism. Surely it can’t be that difficult to win with a $375m luxury payroll? Remove Dave Roberts and the Dodgers probably win even more games.
No one is above criticism. The question is the baseball acumen of the knot heads doing the criticizing.
I thought the Dodgers were $350 mill payroll ($230 mill more than the Crew); but if they are $375 mill it means they are more then a quarter of a $billion over the $120 mill Crew
Get ready for no baseball in 2027; but at least some semblance of payroll sanity may arrive from 2028.
Dave did a great job in the World Series because every move paid off and he didn’t have many dumb ones. I don’t think you can say bringing in Dean in 8th worked out because they won. There’s no comparison to having Call up there with bases loaded rather than Teo. Not even close. If Teo made the last out in the previous inning, different story. Roberts said after the game taking Snell out was a 50/50 call. Put another way….if there wasn’t a single earlier and it was a perfect game, what would be the call? Would you pull him? No way. So we are saying that because some guy singled in the 3rd or 4th inning it’s okay to pull him? Makes zero sense.
Enough of the Roberts dissin, I personally vowed to not do that after last year’s masterpiece managing He was a huge reason for the championship
The Dodgrers have zero class and Dave Roberts is a total A hole!