Let’s get one thing out of the way up front: Jose Iglesias has issued an appeal to the gods. Iglesias, a pop singer who performs as Candelita and sometime infielder for the New York Mets, has seen his song, “OMG,” become something of a victory anthem. It’s been on signs and shirts and — above all — on repeat, as Iglesias’ club charged from fourth place in June all the way to the NLCS in October. Now, “OMG” has been given the remix treatment by the Florida-based musician Armando Christian Pérez, aka Mr. 305, aka Mr. Worldwide, aka Pitbull.
In his pre-NLCS media availability on Saturday morning, Iglesias said he put Pitbull in contact with the Mets, with an eye toward a potential ceremonial first pitch. For one day only, Mr. 305 would become Mr. 718. Pitbull is a karmic force of unfathomable strength, and his intercession in this series would be decisive. It should be treated like the Greek and Trojan heroes’ prayers to Zeus or Apollo in The Iliad. So in the interest of filing a series preview of more than 200 words, let’s operate under the assumption that Pitbull will not place his finger on the scale here. (He might have more important things to do, or other places to be. He is, after all, Mr. Worldwide.)
What if this contest is decided by mortals? Both the Mets and Dodgers got to this point on the strength of their pitching. The Mets held the Phillies to two or fewer runs in all three of their NLDS victories. The Dodgers got their teeth kicked in over the first two games and change of their postseason run — they allowed 21 earned runs over their first 20 defensive innings — before flipping the switch and going lights out until the end of the series. Los Angeles is currently on a run of 24 consecutive scoreless innings, and ramped things up in Game 5; the Padres had just one at-bat with a runner in scoring position all night, and that at-bat resulted in a double play to end the third inning. After that, the Padres didn’t even have another baserunner. The Dodgers’ bullpen has been, if not literally unhittable, then at least un-score-on-able. Or at least their big arms have been.
This regular season, the six Dodgers relievers with the highest gmLI — leverage index when entering the game — were Blake Treinen, Evan Phillips, Michael Kopech, Edgardo Henriquez, Daniel Hudson, and Alex Vesia. Let’s take Henriquez out, because he threw just 3 1/3 innings in the regular season. The remaining five Dodgers relievers combined for 16 2/3 scoreless innings in five games against the Padres, striking out 19 while allowing only 11 total baserunners. The injury that knocked Vesia out of Game 5 of the NLDS, initially thought to be a cramp, turned out to be serious enough to take him out of consideration for the series against the Mets. Nevertheless, the Dodgers still have Kopech, and Phillips, and Treinen, and so on.
Dodger starters, however, were quite hittable against San Diego. Yoshinobu Yamamoto got knocked around in Game 1, then danced between the raindrops over five scoreless innings in Game 5. Jack Flaherty, the presumptive Game 1 NLCS starter, allowed four runs in Game 2 of the NLDS. Walker Buehler got tagged for six runs in the second inning of Game 3, and that’s as far as the rotation goes for the Dodgers; they went with a bullpen game in Game 4. Given how their relievers pitched this series, wouldn’t you have done the same?
