LOS ANGELES -- When the Dodgers clinched their division Saturday in Seattle, Clayton Kershaw lasted just four innings. He threw 56 pitches, 16 of them fastballs that didn't reach 90 mph, but he didn't allow any runs. His 12 outs were followed by another nine from rookie Emmet Sheehan, who turned the rest of the game over to the team's high-leverage relievers, piecing together the Dodgers' 90th win this season and solidifying their 10th National League West title in 11 years. All told, seven pitchers were utilized.
This, essentially, is the blueprint for October.
The Dodgers will soon field what might be their most short-handed postseason rotation this century, a circumstance that requires ingenuity. Starters will make early exits, will occasionally be preceded by openers and will at times be asked to pitch in tandem. The attrition of their staff demands it.
Dustin May (strained flexor tendon) and Tony Gonsolin (torn ulnar collateral ligament) underwent season-ending surgeries earlier this summer. Noah Syndergaard, signed to a $13 million contract over the winter, was traded away at midseason after several poor performances. Julio Urías, the team's Opening Day starter, is on administrative leave after allegations of domestic violence and isn't expected back this season. And Walker Buehler, who had his second Tommy John surgery 13 months ago, couldn't return in time to pick up some of the slack, an exceedingly ambitious pursuit to begin with.
Kershaw, with a balky shoulder that has left him in a diminished state, is the only player remaining from the initial rotation. He is now joined by Lance Lynn, the July acquisition who leads the majors in home runs allowed, and an abundance of rookies. The headliner of that group is Bobby Miller, who has displayed occasional stretches of dominance but has also already blown past his previous career high in innings. Miller, Sheehan, Ryan Pepiot, Gavin Stone and Michael Grove have combined for 49 starts this season, counted on far more heavily than expected. Most of them will continue to be.
"Look, they're here for a reason," Kershaw said. "They have a lot of talent. Obviously it's not the way we would've wanted to go into the postseason, but we've got a good group here. And we have to get the job done one way or another."
For most of the past decade, starting pitching had been the Dodgers' hallmark; their starters led the majors in ERA four out of the past six years and ranked no worse than sixth dating to 2013. This year, the Dodgers' 4.58 mark sits 19th, on track to be their highest in the 15 instances they've reached the postseason since 2000 and the fourth-highest in franchise history. They failed to land the high-end starting pitcher they desperately needed before the trade deadline -- Justin Verlander spurned them for the Houston Astros, Eduardo Rodriguez exercised his no-trade clause to stay with the Detroit Tigers -- and yet they wrapped up the division with 15 games remaining in the regular season.
Their offense was consistently devastating, their bullpen improved significantly at midseason and their enviable knack for simply finding ways to win games carried them throughout. Now they must lean on a creativity that has at times backfired on them in October. And so there will be openers. There will be bulk guys. There will be enough bullpen moves to leave heads spinning.
But can the Dodgers ride that strategy all the way to a championship?
"That's a fair question," their manager, Dave Roberts, said. "I guess time will tell."
The Dodgers' postseason pitching strategy will hinge largely on the opponent, the length of a series and the way a game is flowing, but most of the elements have basically been established.
• Kershaw, who has had at least five days between starts since coming off the injured list in early August and hasn't pitched more than five innings in any of those outings, probably won't face an opposing lineup more than twice. The same can probably be said for Lynn, who has a 4.67 ERA in nine starts since coming over from the Chicago White Sox.
Roberts anticipates "more shorter bursts from both guys." He wants Kershaw and Lynn to attack innings with a reliever's mindset and forget about preserving their best stuff for the middle to late stages of games.
• Miller, the 24-year-old right-hander with an electric, triple-digit fastball, might have the best chance at being utilized as a traditional starter. He might even get Game 1 of the NL Division Series. Miller's major league career began with a 0.78 ERA in his first four starts and a 6.63 ERA over his ensuing seven. He has basically stabilized since the start of August, lasting at least six innings in seven of his nine starts with a 3.52 ERA. His confidence has reminded many around the team of Buehler when he arrived in the majors.
"He's a special kid," Buehler said. "He's handled the success he's had really well, I think, and listening to him talk after the bad ones is kind of the big thing because if you're going to be that arrogant and cocky and confident, you have to be able to handle the bad ones. He's done that really well."
• Relievers Brusdar Graterol and Caleb Ferguson will occasionally be utilized as openers. Perhaps also Shelby Miller, who can record up to six outs and might be useful for full-on bullpen games, which the Dodgers will inevitably need if they keep advancing. Sheehan, Pepiot and Ryan Yarbrough -- the latter an under-the-radar pickup who has a 2.90 ERA in 31 innings since coming over from the Kansas City Royals -- will be counted on to handle the middle innings and get the game to the traditional relievers.
In recent years, the Dodgers, for better or worse, often used Urías as a postseason reliever in lieu of his between starts bullpen sessions. They staged bullpen games and occasionally used openers. And they used May and Gonsolin as hybrid starters while on their way to a championship in 2020. But they only did so out of necessity, when facing elimination, when the matchup dictated it or when they had simply run out of pitching. This year it will be constant, for however long their run lasts.
"It's not going to be conventional," Roberts said, "but I still feel that we have the talent to prevent runs."
There isn't much precedent for what Roberts and the Dodgers are hoping to pull off.
Only five teams have reached the World Series with a higher regular-season starters' ERA than the Dodgers' current mark, according to the Elias Sports Bureau, and none since the 2006 St. Louis Cardinals. Only four got there with more than 50 regular-season starts taken by rookies, and only one -- the 2013 Cardinals -- did so in the past 70 years. Just four teams have won it all while averaging less than five innings per start during the postseason, though two of them did it very recently -- the 2021 Atlanta Braves and the 2020 Dodgers.
But that Braves team began its run with Max Fried and Charlie Morton pitching deep into games; the Dodgers had Buehler and Kershaw -- and, when he wasn't helping out in the bullpen, Urías -- pitching at or near the top of their powers.
That isn't the case now.
The Dodgers will count on their offense, fueled by NL MVP candidates Mookie Betts and Freddie Freeman, to score a lot of runs. They'll count on their bullpen, with the lowest ERA in the majors since the start of August, continuing its recent run of dominance. They'll count on Kershaw, who has willed his way to a 2.52 ERA in 121⅓ innings, continuing to hold up. And they'll count on the likes of Miller, Sheehan, Pepiot and Stone being unfazed by their first taste of the postseason.
They don't have any other choice.
"All I know is that we're going to go out and pitch and we're going to do our best," Kershaw said. "You got to put up zeroes, regardless if it's starters, relievers, closers. You got to pitch well."