The Los Angeles Dodgers are at the halfway mark of playing 31 games over 30 days due to two doubleheaders and a lone off-day on May 19, so manager Dave Roberts still has his work cut out for him to handle the pitching staff over the stretch of games.
The Dodgers have been shuffling their pitching staff quite a bit over the last few days to provide relief, which has included activating Mitch White, David Price and Caleb Ferguson, recalling Justin Bruihl, Ryan Pepiot, Michael Grove and Shane Greene, who was later designated for assignment.
Meanwhile, Reyes Moronta and Garrett Cleavinger were recently optioned, and then Ferguson as well after one inning pitched.
While Julio Urías is still scheduled to start Friday, Roberts said the Dodgers plan to give Tony Gonsolin an extra day of rest to help keep him fresh. Because of that, the Dodgers will either need to make another move for a starter for Saturday, or go with a bullpen game.
As of right now, the Dodgers are leaning toward going with a bullpen game, but they could look for one or two pitchers to provide a few innings to avoid using most of their pen.
“Saturday will be a combo,” Roberts said. “There’ll be a handful of bullpen guys, but if you want to call it a bullpen, sure, because we just don’t have typical length anywhere.”
While going with a bullpen game has the potential to exhaust the Dodgers’ pitching staff before their stretch of 15 consecutive games after Saturday, Roberts believes they have managed the bullpen well enough so no pitcher has been overworked much.
“You know what, I really make sure I kind of keep tabs on how other relievers around the league are being used as well,” Roberts said. “And our usage is as low as anybody, as far as each individual and how their workload is. So I think we’ve done a fantastic job. I really do.”
Roberts recently said Mitch White is built up to go two innings, so he will likely be used on Saturday, and David Price could potentially give the club multiple innings as well. After Price was activated, Roberts said the veteran southpaw would be ready when they need him.
Roberts confident Dodgers can manage pitching staff well
Although it’s been a challenge for the Dodgers to manage their pitching staff, Roberts is confident they can continue to do it well and said it’s fair to say some of their previous seasons has prepared them for it.
“I think part of it is because we’ve been through this before and we always find a way to come out to other side,” he said.
“We have a lot of good players and I think, ideally, you have five healthy starters that go deep in games. But it just doesn’t work out that way. So we’ve been there before. We’re going to find a way.
“The bullpen at this point has been invaluable to our ball club. And even some guys that are not on our roster right now that we’ve had to kind of shuffle in and out. So I still think we have done and will always do a good job preventing runs.”
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