The Dodgers have switched their rotation for the National League Division Series against the San Diego Padres, moving Yoshinobu Yamamoto to Game 1 on Saturday night in Chavez Ravine and Jack Flaherty to Game 2 on Sunday night.
Flaherty, the right-hander who was acquired from the Detroit Tigers at the trade deadline, was originally scheduled to start the opener of the best-of-five series. By moving Yamamoto from Game 2 to Game 1, the Japanese right-hander would be available to start a potential Game 5 on Oct. 11 on five days’ rest.
“It’s much more about if there’s a Game 5,” Andrew Friedman, the team’s president of baseball operations, said during Thursday’s workout. “Yoshi hasn’t pitched on regular [four days’ rest]. Jack is more accustomed to it. Depending on our bullpen usage throughout [the series], it allows us that flexibility in Game 5 if there is one.”
Yamamoto, who signed a 12-year, $325-million deal in December, went 7-2 with a 3.00 ERA in 18 starts this season, missing almost three months from mid-June to mid-September because of a rotator-cuff strain. The Dodgers kept him on a once-a-week schedule that resembled his workload in Japan.
In addition to freeing up Yamamoto for a potential Game 5 start, the rotation switch will also allow Flaherty, who went 6-2 with a 3.58 ERA in 10 starts for the Dodgers, to be available for a Game 5 on regular rest.
Yamamoto gave up eight earned runs and eight hits in six innings of his two starts against the Padres this season, a 15-11 loss in South Korea on March 21 and an 8-7 loss in Los Angeles on April 12.
“It just creates more options,” Friedman said. “If there is a Game 5, depending on the usage of our bullpen, we can have [Yamamoto and Flaherty] take down the game. We can have just one of them with our pen. It creates flexibility for things that we can’t possibly know right now, which is how our pitching is used in Games 1 through 4.”
Friedman said after walking through the logic of the switch with Yamamoto and Flaherty that both pitchers “were excited about it.”
Friedman also said he is not concerned about Yamamoto potentially being over-excited about making his first major league playoff start in a series opener, not after watching Yamamoto allow two hits in seven scoreless innings of a nationally televised June 7 game in Yankee Stadium.
“To go into a hostile environment like that and see him elevate his game … we talked about it at the time, that’s not an easy thing to do,” Friedman said. “He has experienced pitching in a lot of big games, and the one thing we feel really confident about is that the moment is not going to affect him. He’s going to take it in and feed on that adrenaline and do what he does.”