LOS ANGELES — Teams that open the playoffs with a best-of-three wild-card series are usually at a disadvantage because they have to burn their best two or three starting pitchers to advance, leaving the back end of their rotation to start the first two or three games of a best-of-five division series.
Not the Dodgers, who could start Shohei Ohtani, Blake Snell and Yoshinobu Yamamoto in a National League wild-card series next week and still have Tyler Glasnow, Clayton Kershaw and Emmet Sheehan available for the first two or three games of a division series.
“We’ve got our rotation set through the coming week, and we have the options to kind of pivot in any way we want,” manager Dave Roberts said before Sunday’s game. “When you have essentially five or six guys that you trust … we’re in as good a spot with that as we’ve been in, and we haven’t been in that position in years past.”
The problem, as it has been all season for the Dodgers, is the bullpen, the team’s much-maligned relief corps, coughing up another late lead on Sunday when Blake Treinen was roughed up for three runs in the eighth inning of a 3-1 loss to the San Francisco Giants in Chavez Ravine.
For most of a sun-splashed afternoon, the Dodgers showed off their rotation depth as Sheehan, the fifth or sixth man on the team’s depth chart, allowed one hit over seven shutout innings, striking out 10 and walking none.
Sheehan was in line for a win when the Dodgers scratched across a run in the bottom of the seventh for a 1-0 lead, but the bullpen reared its ugly head again in the eighth when Treinen gave up three runs on three hits and two walks, preventing the Dodgers from completing a four-game sweep and keeping their magic number to clinch the National League West title at three.
Sheehan, who returned from Tommy John surgery in mid-June, gave up a clean single to Rafael Devers with one out in the first inning and nothing else.
He hit Bryce Eldridge with a pitch to open the second inning and hit Andrew Knizner with a pitch to start the third but retired 15 straight batters – eight by strikeout – from the third through seventh innings and did not allow a Giants runner to reach second base. He needed only 84 pitches – 58 of them strikes – to complete seven innings.
“Emmet is the sweetest guy you’ll meet, but he’s a killer,” Roberts said. “He’s like Yoshinobu. I’ve known that since I’ve seen him, and then you layer in the skill set, the talent, and he’s not afraid.
“Just watching his glove-side command, he developed a slider with his changeup … I just felt like he was going to be a guy. He was my wild card all year long, so I expect big things from him in the postseason, I do.”
The Dodgers snapped a scoreless tie in the bottom of the seventh when Max Muncy drew a walk from Giants rookie right-hander Trevor McDonald, took second on Andy Pages’ single to right field and scored on Michael Conforto’s RBI single to left.
Both runners advanced on Miguel Rojas’ sacrifice bunt, but the Dodgers were unable to tack on, as Eldridge, the San Francisco first baseman, made a diving catch to his left of pinch-hitter Tommy Edman’s low line drive and threw across the diamond to complete an inning-ending double play.
Three batters into the eighth, the lead was gone. Christian Koss opened with a dribbler to third base for a single off Treinen, Drew Gilbert singled to right, and pinch-hitter Patrick Bailey drove an RBI ground-rule double to right for a 1-1 tie.
Heliot Ramos flew to shallow right, the runners holding, and Devers was walked intentionally to load the bases. Willy Adames won a nine-pitch battle, taking a full-count, 94-mph sinker inside for a walk to force in a run for a 2-1 lead, and Bailey scored on Matt Chapman’s groundout to shortstop for a 3-1 lead.
Treinen, a playoff hero during the team’s 2024 run to the World Series title, suffered his fifth loss in his last seven appearances. Relievers Joey Lucchesi and Ryan Walker got the final six outs for the Giants.
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