LOS ANGELES -- Julio Urias' career, he said, "has been a lot about patience." When the Los Angeles Dodgers signed him out of Mexico 10 years ago, he was 16, tabbed as a wunderkind and exceedingly eager.
"I wanted to conquer the world," Urias, speaking in Spanish, said last week. "I wanted to throw all the time. But I had to understand that it's a business, that things happen, and I had to learn that."
Urias, now 26, has completed his second full season as a major league starting pitcher, evolving as a dominant, steadying presence on a star-laden team loaded with players who absorb far more attention. He led the majors in wins in 2021 and led the National League in ERA in 2022, establishing himself as one of the best pitchers in the sport.
Before that came patience.
The Dodgers, mindful of both Urias' status and his age, were careful with his innings and slow to promote him as he moved up their system as a teenager. Five years in, he got an extended spring training assignment in 2017, on the heels of an impressive rookie season. Then shoulder surgery robbed him of most of the following year, followed by a hybrid role and more conservative usage in 2019 and 2020. It was all done in an effort to keep Urias healthy, to get the most out of his prized left arm late in seasons -- but it came with frustrations that had to be overcome.
"I never stopped working, never stopped learning, never stopped doing what I could to make sure that when my moment came, I was ready," Urias said. "I feel like my moment came in 2020, when it was my turn to record the last out. I feel so thankful to have been put in that situation."
That moment now encapsulates a fascinating dilemma for these Dodgers.
Urias, the man who recorded the save that sealed the Dodgers' first championship in three decades, enters this postseason as both the team's best starter and its best closer. The Dodgers once again dominated through the regular season. They won a franchise-record 111 games, outscored teams by a combined 334 runs and boasted both the highest OPS and the lowest ERA in the sport. But their pitching plan seems remarkably murky as they enter a National League Division Series against the division rival San Diego Padres.
Craig Kimbrel's season-long struggles have prompted the Dodgers to go with a closer-by-committee approach -- Kimbrel has been left off the NLDS roster -- but questions linger beyond that.
Blake Treinen, their most valuable reliever given his dominance and versatility, has made only five appearances and finished the season on the injured list with a recurrence of shoulder tightness. Dustin May, who has the makings of an exceptional starting pitcher at full health, is only two months removed from his return from Tommy John surgery and was recently fighting tightness in his back. Walker Buehler, who has essentially performed as the Dodgers' ace these last two years, is out through 2023 with a torn ulnar collateral ligament.
Urias will start Tuesday's Game 1 and Clayton Kershaw will take the ball for Wednesday's Game 2. But the Dodgers could use any one of their other starters -- Tyler Anderson, Tony Gonsolin, Andrew Heaney, May -- in piggyback roles this postseason. And any number of their relievers -- Evan Phillips, Brusdar Graterol, Alex Vesia, Tommy Kahnle and Chris Martin among them -- could close out games. The Dodgers always get creative with their postseason pitching staff -- some might say a little too creative -- and this year's version looks primed for a new level of inventiveness.
No one embodies that philosophy better than Urias. He has earned the right to take regular turns through a playoff rotation, but his success out of the bullpen cannot be ignored. As the stakes ratchet up, the temptation to use Urias as a reliever -- a strategy that in the past has worked and has also backfired -- will be ever-present. Dodgers manager Dave Roberts, speaking during the final week of the regular season, said he'll keep an open mind. But he also downplayed the possibility.
"It's probably less compelling as it's ever been for me this year, considering the possibilities of arms and what we have," Roberts said, noting "the arm talent" and "the neutrality" in the Dodgers' bullpen. "The floor," he added, "is considerably higher than it has been."
Dodgers president of baseball operations Andrew Friedman, who shied away from major moves before the trade deadline, has continually stated that the team would field what amounts to an elite pitching staff in the postseason, regardless of its makeup. He and Roberts believe this is the deepest bullpen they've carried into October, despite Kimbrel's struggles and Treinen's injuries. Given the way the Dodgers limited runs this season, it's hard to argue.
But scouts and executives throughout the industry have expressed concern about the Dodgers' vulnerability given their lack of traditional shutdown arms relative to other teams in these playoffs. The Dodgers believe they can overcome that, at least in part, with creativity. Asked if an unconventional approach can work for an entire postseason, Friedman said, "It did in '20."
That year, the Dodgers used Gonsolin and May in unconventional roles and occasionally used Urias to close out games in place of an inconsistent Kenley Jansen. Urias thrived in that setting. The following October, though, Urias pitched in a piggyback role in Game 5 of the NLDS rather than make a traditional start. Three days later, in Game 2 of the NL Championship Series, he pitched in relief on what would have been his between-starts bullpen day and blew a lead. Three days after that, he started Game 4 and struggled mightily.
The popular belief from the outside was that the Dodgers got too cute; that they overthought their approach and set Urias up to fail.
The fear is what will happen if they do it again.
Urias doesn't blame his usage for his struggles last October; instead, he credits the approach of an Atlanta Braves team he might face in a third straight NLCS this year. He admits that he'd be more comfortable as a traditional starting pitcher, but he's open to once again helping out of the bullpen -- if it comes to that.
"I don't want it to happen because I want things to fall into place," Urias said. "But I'm not gonna say I'm not ready. I've done it in the past. Hopefully we don't need it. If we all do our job, I don't feel like it's going to be necessary. And I'm confident in that. There's a lot of talent in the bullpen, a lot of talent among the starters, in the offense. The amount of talent in this room can make your head spin."
As Urias navigated through years of innings limits and undefined roles, there were times, he said, when he started to wonder if the organization had something against him personally.
"You can easily start letting those thoughts seep in and letting it derail your confidence," he said. "But I think I've always been able to turn the negative into a positive."
That approach began at an early age, when the children of his hometown continually made fun of a left eye that required multiple surgeries and struggled to stay open. Urias drew strength from dominating on a baseball field with one good eye. Teams shied away from him as an international prospect because of concerns with his sight, and Urias became fueled by what he considered a disrespect toward his work ethic. It became a theme.
When Urias won 20 games in 2021 and finished only seventh in NL Cy Young Award voting, he responded with his best year yet. When he was denied an invitation to his first All-Star Game at Dodger Stadium earlier this summer -- which carried special meaning given his Mexican origins and the region's ties to Fernando Valenzuela -- he responded by dominating the second half, lasting at least six innings and giving up no more than two runs in 10 of his 13 starts. He finished the season 17-7 with a 2.16 ERA in 175 innings, placing him squarely in the Cy Young discussion with Miami's Sandy Alcantara.
"I like it," Urias said of others discounting him. "I don't do it for them, though -- I do it for me."