Dodgers: How to best handle eight starting pitchers

The Dodgers currently have eight pitchers who have started games on the active roster. And Rich Hill is on the way, seeking a return in the coming weeks.

That makes nine potential starting pitchers with a less than a month separating the Dodgers from the postseason. Nine pitchers with varying degrees of health and length and postseason experience, but nine nonetheless.

That’s a lot of options for Roberts, which isn’t a bad thing.

Of course, with all of these options, a few are sure things.

Clayton Kershaw and Walker Buehler will be on the postseason roster and they will be starting games, health allowing.

But after this dynamic duo, the picture becomes far murkier, even though it includes plenty of All-Stars and top rookies. So what to do with all of these arms, a plethora of pitchers? Throw them all in the bullpen? Let all start down the stretch to keep them stretched out and ready for long relief and starts come October?

In this article, I look at the seven pitchers not named Kershaw or Buehler to try and sort out what role they should play in the rest of the regular season and in the postseason, simply by going down the depth chart of starting pitchers and transitioning to the starters listed as being part of the bullpen.

Hyun-Jin Ryu

Ryu’s case is so interesting he gets a section of his own.

He started the All-Star game. He is the NL leader in ERA, over established aces like Jacob DeGrom and Max Scherzer. And yet, his role is up in the air, despite him having a 19-8 record and 2.22 ERA over his last two seasons (239.2 innings).

Why? His recent struggles.

On August 16, he had an NL leading 1.45 ERA and a 12-3 record.

Then he pitched on August 17 and allowed four earned runs. Then he pitched two more times, each time allowing seven earned runs. He now has a 2.35 ERA and three straight losses to his name. He’s trending 100% in the wrong direction.

And yet he’s still the best starter on the team in terms of ERA. Until a few weeks ago, he was garnering strong consideration to start Game 1 of a playoff series for the Dodgers.

Now? I think the team will continue to rest him and utilize some of the other eight available starters to give him rest and limit his outings to 70 pitches or less, or even to four innings or less.

Pitching Ryu once through the order before turning things over to Dustin May, Kenta Maeda, Julio Urias, and Ross Stripling does two things.

One, it allows Ryu to get reps against the top of the order while keeping his stuff sharp, and maintaining his stuff for when it really matters. Two, the other starting-capable pitchers need innings, especially if there isn’t room to get them real starts.

But more on that next.

Rich Hill

One of my favorite Dodgers, D. Mountain may be back in the middle of this month. Hill has pitched nearly 50 postseason innings since joining the Dodgers, and he has a sub-3.00 ERA in that span.

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Wow. That’s just not something that can be said about most of the Dodger rotation. The only other pitcher with that much postseason work, Kershaw, since 2016 (when Hill arrived), has actually thrown over 75 postseason innings, but not quite with the stellar ERA Hill has.

But unlike Kershaw, Hill has been hurt for most of this season. His odds of starting in the postseason, beyond a role as an opener for Gonsolin, which in my opinion makes too much sense not to happen if Hill is right, will be limited.

Hill will probably not reach double-digit postseason innings, but any innings amount he can muster in what may be one of his last hurrahs, will be important to the Dodgers.

Think back to his domination in his last playoff start, the 6.1-inning, seven-strikeout start that got blown by Scott Alexander and Ryan Madson, ultimately giving the Red Sox the 3-1 lead and the edge in the series.

If Hill can come back and take down the top of the order, either at the beginning or middle of the game, especially when the top of the order involves a killer lefty, he should be the man for the job.