The Los Angeles Dodgers’ starting rotation took over as the biggest driver of the team’s success well before their dominant run in the 2025 postseason.
With $643.5 million invested in their top-three starters, plus another $700 million for Shohei Ohtani, it’s not hard to see why the Dodgers have breezed through October thus far. It is a drastically different style in terms of pitching than the one that helped the team win the 2024 World Series.
The Dodgers suffered a rash of injuries to their rotation this year, but consciously chose to not rush them back and also benefitted from those issues not being season-ending.
A patient approach made games more difficult for the Dodgers during the regular season, but had a secondary benefit of keeping their best arms fresh for October.
To prepare his starters for an increased workload in the playoffs, manager Dave Roberts made an effort to push them down the stretch of the regular season. It was born out of necessity because the Dodgers had not clinched the National League West until late in the season, but it was also meant to get Tyler Glasnow and Blake Snell ready to help carry the pitching staff in October.
“Yeah, I think on the fresh part for sure,” Snell said when reflecting on the benefit from missing time. “I think we were able to throw enough innings to where we can learn from mistakes and get a lot better from that as well. So I really like where the starting staff’s at. Yoshi is really the only guy that really posted the whole year.
“But for everybody else, to be healthy, feeling good, confident with the amount of innings they had on the season, to be able to pitch in the postseason, I really like where we’re at.”
While a majority of pitching staffs are fatigued by this time of year, Dodgers starters look to be in peak form. The team has received an average of more than six innings per start.
The group has managed to consistently pitch deep into games because of their effectiveness on the mound and Roberts allowing them to reach high pitch counts.
Dodgers starters set record in NLCS
The Dodgers pulled off a sweep of the Milwaukee Brewers in the National League Championship Series thanks to their pitching staff, which was carried by a dominant string of starts from Snell, Yoshinobu Yamamoto, Glasnow and Ohtani.
They combined to deliver the lowest ERA ever by a starting rotation in an LCS for either league.
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