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Clayton Kershaw Scratched From Game 2, Tony Gonsolin To Start

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1:40PM: Dodgers manager Dave Roberts told Jorge Castillo of the L.A. Times (Twitter links) and other reporters that chances are “very good” that Kershaw will pitch in the NLCS but he won’t be starting Game 3.  Kershaw’s back spasms developed during his bullpen session on Sunday, Roberts said.

11:57PM: The Dodgers have optimism that Kershaw can be back for Game 4, MLB Network’s Jon Morosi tweets.  “If his back improves relatively quickly,” there’s a chance Kershaw could even be ready for Game 3.

11:02PM: Dodgers left-hander Clayton Kershaw has been scratched from his scheduled start in today’s Game 2 of the NLCS due to back spasms.  Tony Gonsolin will instead take the ball to start against the Braves.

Kershaw has dealt with back problems at various points during this career, including a bout of back tightness that put him on the injured list for the first week of the 2020 season.  Naturally, the timing couldn’t be much worse for Kershaw to again suffer back woes just hours before the start of Game 2, and the question now becomes when exactly the longtime Dodger ace will be able to pitch again.

Depending on the severity of the spasms, Kershaw could potentially start Wednesday’s Game 3, though that would seem to be a quick turn-around.  Assuming the spasms are minor, Kershaw could be held off until Game 4 on Thursday, in what could be a series-deciding game should Los Angeles fall behind 3-0.

The Dodgers had been relying on Walker Buehler and Kershaw as the cornerstone of their postseason rotation plan, with the duo starting the first two games of each playoff series thus far.  Dustin May started Game 3 of the NLDS against the Padres, and some combination of May, Gonsolin, and Julio Urias was expected to handle the third and fourth starter duties for the remainder of the playoffs, the Dodgers also making liberal use of their bullpen.  Alex Wood was also added to the Dodgers’ NLCS roster to provide even more pitching depth given the lack of off-days throughout the series.

More immediately, Gonsolin now faces the immediate and unexpected pressure of having to keep Los Angeles out of an 0-2 series deficit in his postseason debut.  Gonsolin has impressed over his two MLB seasons, posting a 2.60 ERA, 3.77 K/BB, and 8.6 K/9 over 86 2/3 innings, starting 14 of his 20 career games.  It is something of a tribute to the Dodgers’ depth that a promising young arm like Gonsolin wasn’t even a full-time starter for them heading into October, but he will have a stiff test in a Braves lineup that crushed right-handed pitching this season.

Braves Add Johan Camargo To NLCS Roster

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The Braves have added infielder Johan Camargo to the NLCS roster, the team announced.  Camargo will replace Adam Duvall, who suffered an oblique injury in yesterday’s Game 1.  While Duvall’s injury would likely have sidelined him anyway, his removal from the NLCS roster means he is officially ineligible to play in the World Series should the Braves advance.

Camargo has mostly played in the infield during his four-year career, though he does have a handful of appearances as a corner outfielder.  Atlanta isn’t really hurting for outfield depth given the presence of Ronald Acuna, Marcell Ozuna, Nick Markakis, Cristian Pache and utilityman Charlie Culberson on the roster, plus third baseman Austin Riley can play left field in a pinch.  With Camargo now adding to the infield depth, the Braves could be more apt to go to Culberson or Riley as a late-game sub.

Moreso than defensive concerns, replacing Duvall with Camargo is a significant hit to Atlanta’s lineup.  Duvall hit .237/.301/.532 with 16 homers over 209 PA this season, while Camargo hasn’t hit well in either of the last two seasons.  That said, the Braves have plenty of other bats to theoretically pick up the offensive slack, while it should be noted that Duvall had only a .443 OPS in 21 plate appearances during this postseason.

Adam Duvall Exits NLCS Game 1 With Oblique Injury

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Braves outfielder Adam Duvall came out of tonight’s NL Championship Series Game 1 in the second inning, per various reporters (including Jeff Passan of ESPN and David O’Brien of the Athletic). Duvall clutched at his left side following a swing and was immediately removed. Cristian Pache finished the plate appearance and took over defensively the following inning. Manager Brian Snitker confirmed on the Fox broadcast Duvall had injured his oblique, O’Brien adds.

There’s no official word on his status, but it seems unlikely Duvall will be back this postseason. Oblique strains typically take weeks to recover. While it’s not yet clear precisely what Duvall suffered, Snitker noted he “(hurt) it pretty good” (relays Bill Plunkett of the Orange County Register).

It’s a significant blow to the Braves’ offense. Duvall has hit well for Atlanta the past two seasons, including a .237/.301/.532 line with 16 home runs in 209 plate appearances this year. Pache now seems likely to be thrust into a regular role. The 21-year-old is a supreme young talent and figures to play well defensively, but he has all of four career MLB plate appearances under his belt.

The Braves can replace Duvall on the postseason roster if his prognosis is as bad as it seems. Ender Inciarte has been a healthy scratch throughout the playoffs and seems likely to join the club. Ronald Acuña Jr., Nick Markakis and primary DH Marcell Ozuna are the only other listed outfielders on Atlanta’s NLCS roster, although infielders Charlie Culberson and Austin Riley have some experience in the grass.

Braves Keep Same 28-Man Roster For NLCS

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The Braves are sticking with what works as they head into the NLCS showdown with the Dodgers. They’ll stick with the same 28-man roster that they took into the NLDS. Here’s a refresher:

Right-Handed Pitchers

Left-Handed Pitchers

Catchers

Infielders

Outfielders

The Braves will ride again with a 15-man pitching staff. They may very well need every arm if this 7-game, 7-day series goes the distance. In terms of their starters, they are sticking with the same guys for the first three games of the series, with Fried, Anderson, and Wright going on consecutive days, per the Athletic’s David O’Brien (via Twitter). They survived the first two rounds of the postseason without having to name a fourth starter, but that’s certain to change against the Dodgers. No word yet on who will start that game four, with Ynoa, Wilson, and Tomlin being the most capable of providing length.

Tyler Matzek's Breakout

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Tyler Matzek hadn’t thrown a Major League inning since the 2015 season, yet the southpaw has been a huge contributor to the Braves’ 2020 bullpen, posting a 2.79 ERA, 4.30 K/BB rate, and 13.3 K/9 over 29 regular season innings, and adding three shutout innings of work thus far in the playoffs.  Matzek’s five-year absence from the big leagues was marked by a 2017 spent entirely out of baseball, and then a stint pitching for the independent Texas AirHogs in 2018 and 2019 that got his career on track.  As AirHogs general manager Nate Gutierez told Steve Hummer of the Atlanta Journal-Constitution about Matzek’s mindset heading to indy ball, “some guys come in defeated….When Tyler came in, we had open and honest conversations with him about where he was, which was a ways away from where he thought he needed to be.”

  • Matzek’s emergence further strengthen a bullpen that was one of the league’s best in 2020. Also instrumental at the end of games for manager Brian Snitker are Chris Martin and Mark Melancon, a pair of relievers originally acquired around the 2019 trade deadline. Those are among a series of moves the Alex Anthopolous-led front office has made to fortify the pitching staff over the past couple seasons, as Buster Olney of ESPN explores. Even more impactful, perhaps, are potential moves Atlanta didn’t make, as Olney notes that opposing teams tried to buy low on Max Fried and Kyle Wright after they started their careers with somewhat mixed results. To their credit, the Braves obviously stood pat on both pitchers, which has proven especially beneficial in Fried’s case.

MLBTR Poll: Who Will Win The NLCS?

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The 2020 National League Champion Series is set, and for all the concern of a watered-down postseason field this year, we’ll see two of the league’s top three records square off when the 43-17 Dodgers take on the 35-25 Braves.

Atlanta and Los Angeles both feature powerhouse offenses, as the two were separated by just one run during regular season play atop the National League leaderboard; the Dodgers scored an NL-best 349 runs to the Braves’ 348. The Dodgers posted a team 122 wRC+ to the Braves’ 121.

It’s a different story on the pitching front, where an injury-plagued Atlanta club saw its rotation post an NL-worst 5.51 ERA to the Dodgers’ NL-best 3.29 mark. The Braves, however, have a pair of high-end arms fronting a top-heavy rotation: Cy Young candidate Max Fried and breakout rookie Ian Anderson. Former No. 5 overall pick Kyle Wright dominated in his postseason debut yesterday when he blanked the Marlins over six innings and piled up seven strikeouts. As for the bullpens? These are the National League’s two best in terms of both ERA and FIP.

Both teams swept a division rival in the NLDS. The Dodgers ended a breakout 2020 showing for the upstart Padres, while the Braves cut short a Cinderella season for a Marlins club that very few pegged as a playoff contender. The end result is a star-studded NLCS that will pit Mookie Betts, Clayton Kershaw, Cody Bellinger, Corey Seager and the rest of the Dodgers against Ronald Acuna Jr., Freddie Freeman, Marcell Ozuna, Fried and the Braves. We’ve yet to see these clubs square off in 2020, but this best-of-seven series should pack plenty of intrigue.

We’re three days out from Game 1, which will take place on Monday evening. MLBTR readers, who are you taking? (Link to poll for Trade Rumors mobile app users)

Braves Go With 15-Man Pitching Staff In NLDS

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The Braves have set their 28-man roster for this week’s NLDS matchup against the upstart Marlins. Here’s the breakdown:

Right-Handed Pitchers

Left-Handed Pitchers

Catchers

Infielders

Outfielders

There are only two changes from the wild card round for the Braves. In an effort to have more arms at the ready for a series that could include games on 5 consecutive days, Atlanta added Bryse Wilson and Huascar Ynoa to the NLDS roster. Both are capable of starting a potential game 4, though either would likely have a short leash. More importantly, perhaps, is that both are capable of providing multiple innings of relief out of the bullpen at some point during the series. They are now carrying a robust 15-man pitching staff for the series, which includes four southpaws in the bullpen.

Johan Camargo and William Contreras are the casualties, shortening the bench for Atlanta to just a backup catcher, Culberson and Sandoval as the reserve infielders, and Pache as their lone backup outfielder. The four-man bench is made possible by Culberson, who can play all over the diamond in a pinch.

Marlins Set Rotation For First Three Games Of NLDS

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The Marlins are preparing to kick off their NLDS against the Atlanta Braves on Tuesday. This series is non-conventional for a postseason set in that the best-of-five will play out over 5 consecutive days (and of course, because it’s being played in a playoff bubble at a neutral site during a pandemic).

No days off means there will be less of the starters-in-relief that has come to define many recent postseasons, including last year when Nationals’ manager Dave Martinez used each of Stephen Strasburg, Max Scherzer, and Patrick Corbin out of the bullpen en route to winning the World Series. But there’s still potential for lots of in-series finagling of pitching staffs depending on how the first couple of games play out. For Atlanta, that could mean a bullpen day for game four. Max Fried, Ian Anderson, and Kyle Wright will take the hill for the first three games, and odds are they’d bring Fried back on short rest for a potential winner-take-all game five.

The potential to return on short rest for a deciding game five makes the selection of the game one starter all the more important . The Marlins will start Sandy Alcantara in the series opener, followed by Pablo López in game two and rookie phenom Sixto Sánchez in game three, tweets Jordan McPherson of the Miami Herald. The Marlins young trio have a real opportunity to add to their pandemic-truncated resumes. Alcantara and López won’t be arbitration eligible until after 2021, so there’s time to build a more comprehensive portfolio before entering the arbitration process. Still, every extra start does help considering the half a season or more lost due to the pandemic. The 25-year-old Alcantara, for example, was only able to make 7 regular season starts because of time spent on the COVID-19 injured list. He added one successful postseason start to that total already, and by starting game one of the NLDS, he could add another pair should the series go the distance.

Sánchez, with just 7 regular season starts to his name, isn’t scheduled to enter arbitration until after the 2023 season. He’ll be pushed back a day after 5 spotless innings against the Cubs in game two of the Wild Card series. Sánchez came out hot against the Cubs, routinely hitting triple-digits in the first couple of innings. His velocity dropped to the 94-to-97 mph range by the fifth inning. A game two start would have put him on track for a regular four days of rest. This way gets the 22-year-old an extra day off after a high-intensity outing at Wrigley Field.

López will take the hill for Wednesday’s game two instead. His last start came all the way back on September 24th. That gives him 12 days off between starts. That last outing also happened to come against these very Braves, one of three times he opposed Freddie Freeman and company during the regular season. The Marlins went 2-1 in those games, though the loss on September 9th was easily López’s roughest (and shortest) outing of the season. He managed just 1 2/3 innings while serving up 4 hits, 4 walks, and 7 earned runs. The 24-year-old went 5 scoreless, striking out 6 while yielding just 2 hits and 2 walks in his final start of the year at Atlanta.

In a vacuum, any of the three would be legitimate options to open the series, but manager Don Mattingly wasn’t troubled by his decision about who to start in game one. Per MLB.com’s Joe Frisaro, Mattingly said, “Obviously, Sandy’s easy. He’s been our guy, kind of our No. 1.”

Freddie Freeman On Potential Extension

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Longtime Braves star Freddie Freeman may win the NL MVP this year, but the first baseman isn’t signed beyond next season. As a result, the World Series-contending Braves will soon have to decide how far they’ll go to keep him in the fold. There’s mutual interest in a new deal, though, Freeman revealed Monday (via David O’Brien of The Athletic).

Freeman, whose eight-year, $135MM extension is nearing an end, said that he’d “love to stay” in Atlanta, and he believes general manager Alex Anthopoulos is aware of that. “We’ll see how it goes. But this team is built to win for a long time and I know that. It’s going to be a good ride. Hopefully I can be a part of it,” Freeman added.

A 2007 second-round pick, Freeman has turned into one of the most accomplished players in Braves history. The 31-year-old is a four-time All-Star who has slashed .295/.383/.509 with 240 home runs and 38 fWAR over 5,965 plate appearances. He turned in a career-best .341/.462/.640 line with 13 HRs and an NL-leading 3.4 fWAR across 262 PA in 2020 en route to what could be an MVP-winning season.

Regardless of whether Freeman takes home hardware in the coming months, he looks as if he’s in line for a second contract worth at least $100MM. Speculatively, Freeman could push for a similar pact to the five-year, $130MM extension Paul Goldschmidt signed with the Cardinals before 2019.

Braves Announce Starters For First Three Games Of NLDS

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OCTOBER 5: As expected, the Braves announced that Fried will get the ball in Game 1, with Anderson and Wright tabbed for Games 2 and 3, respectively (via David O’Brien of the Athletic). Manager Brian Snitker suggested the club could carry fifteen pitchers on their NLDS roster (relays O’Brien). Atlanta only activated thirteen pitchers for their shorter first-round series against the Reds.

OCTOBER 4: The Braves will consider a bullpen game at some point during their NLDS series against the Marlins, per MLB.com’s Mark Bowman. That’s a lot to put on a bullpen in a 5-game series that takes place over 5 days, but the Braves and manager Brian Snitker may not have a better option available to them.

Max Fried figures to get the start in game one, with Snitker announcing the move in all but name: “I think you want your best going in Game 1,” said Snitker, per Bowman. Fried could return on short rest to start a potential win-or-go-home game five. Said Snitker, “…I definitely think that is a possibility. We just need to see how that first game goes and the subsequent games as well.” Snitker remained coy about officially naming Fried as the game one starter, but only an injury would derail a game one start from Fried at this point, and it seems their ace lefty is finally healthy for the first time in that past month.

Beyond Fried, rookie standout Ian Anderson should line up for game two and Kyle Wright for game three. Again, Snitker would make nothing official, but the Braves don’t have a lot of options given the injuries that befell their rotation during the season.

Game four is where things get interesting for the Braves, as they don’t have a clear option lined up to start this game – hence the possibility of a bullpen game. Josh Tomlin was on the Wild Card roster, and he could function as a key swingman after making 5 starts during the regular season. Tomlin covered 39 2/3 innings across 17 total appearances during the regular season with a 4.76 ERA/4.02 FIP and 8.17 K/9 to 1.82 BB/9.

Atlanta went with a 10-man bullpen for the wild card series, with Tomlin as the only true long man. If they should so choose, the Braves have a number of options elsewhere in the system with experience eating innings. Huascar Ynoa, Bryse Wilson, Touki Toussaint, and Sean Newcomb could conceivably be added to their pitching pool as options to start or eat innings in a potential game four. That said, 10 guys in the pen should be enough even with a bullpen game, and the Braves already expect to lean heavily on Mark Melancon and Shane Greene – each of whom could theoretically pitch in as many as four of the five games, if it goes the distance.

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