Dodgers’ final bullpen game backfires, but team’s best arms are ready for Game 5 (Video)

NEW YORK – The Dodgers were walking a tightrope with their bullpen in the postseason, and although that strategy helped them come within a whisker of winning the World Series, in their final postseason game in the bullpen in Game 4.

“It’s a challenge,” Dodgers manager Dave Roberts said after his team’s game Lost 11-4 to the Yankees.

Rookie Ben Casparius was selected as the team’s starting reliever in Tuesday’s game against the Yankees, and although he only allowed one run over two innings, his three walks created plenty of stress at-bats, which proved to be the theme of the early innings for the Dodgers’ guns.

Roberts then turned to veteran right-hander Daniel Hudson to be the bridge between Casparius and the massive Landon Knack. He hoped Hudson would get through the heart of the Yankees without major damage. However, Hudson was not at his best, and an even bigger problem was that his lack of command quickly led batters into favorable conversions, which got him into trouble.

Hudson started the third round with a count loss against Juan Soto, and after Soto struck out in the first round, things started to heat up. The Dodgers right-hander allowed three consecutive batters to reach base, striking out Aaron Judge while giving up a single to Jazz Chisholm Jr. and walking Giancarlo Stanton.

“Obviously in the third round I had a little bit of a mess of my own making,” Hudson said later. “I threw a couple of good pitches to Juan to start the inning and then it just got away from me.”

Hudson almost managed to get out of trouble. He led to a jump shot by Anthony Rizzo, who scored the key second, after which Anthony Volpe appeared on the field to stop him.

On the first pitch he saw 23-year-old Volpe electrified fans at Yankee Stadium looking for reasons to cheerpressing the slider into the seats on the left to play the Grand Slam tournament and giving the Bronx Bombers a 5-2 lead that would be enough to extort Match no. 5 on Wednesday.

“I just threw a really bad slider,” Hudson said after the game. “It’s kind of like one of those things that just pops out of your hand and you just have that immediate feeling of ‘Oh no’ in your stomach.”

Said Roberts: “He had Stanton 1-2 and just couldn’t get him on the field. Then a pop-up hits and he’s on the brink of getting out of it, leaving Volpe with the slider arm. That was the difference this round.”

Los Angeles’ offense quickly took the lead another home run by Freddie Freeman and even after the grand slam, he had a chance to get back into it, starting with a solo homer by Will Smith that made it 5-3 in the fifth set. However, the Dodgers were unable to put together a good inning against the Yankees bullpen, which did not give up a run over five innings. Aside from the two big flies, the Dodgers offense mustered only four other hits on the night.

Shohei Ohtani, starting the game with an injured shoulder, looked a little hampered in his at-bats, but still belted a 102 mph single and a 103.8 mph single in two of his four at-bats.

“We’ve asked him multiple times and he’s fine with it,” Roberts said of Ohtani’s arm. “He doesn’t feel it.”

Yankees he poured it at the end of the matchscoring one run in the sixth inning off Knack and five more off mop-up Brent Honeywell in the eighth, opening the fourth with what was by far the biggest offensive outburst of the New York series.

“I don’t think anyone expected these guys to lay down,” Roberts said later. “… These guys, unfortunately, responded. It was a good game until it wasn’t.”

Casparius added: “Of course we want to take care of every day. A win today would be great. But this is baseball.”

The only silver lining from the Dodgers’ Game 4 loss was the job Knack did in eating up some innings and keeping the Dodgers in the game before things got worse. The right-hander had 12 outs per run in his best postseason performance. As a result, Roberts was able to stay away from all of his high-leverage players, most notably Alex Vesia, Brusdar Graterol, Michael Kopech and Blake Treinen, who will be rested and available on Wednesday.

“I really tried to stay ahead as much as I could,” Knack said. “I’m really just trying to get a good mix. Last time (against the Mets) I had trouble trying to throw two pitches. Today I really tried to take it all in. After that, the attitude was just to keep us in the game.”

The Dodgers will now send Jack Flaherty to the mound for Game 5, where he will face Gerrit Cole in a rematch of Game 1. Flaherty, supported by the best emergency departments in Los Angeles, will try to bring the Dodgers closer to the series and prevent the fall classic from returning to Los Angeles.

“At the end of the day, we’re still in a pretty good place,” Roberts said. “And we feel good. We will be ready to go (Wednesday).”