The biggest question mark was with Hudson. The idea of ​​bringing him into the game with a 2-1 lead Juan Soto, Aaron Richter and Jazz Chisholm makes perfect sense. And he got Soto to hit six pitches — all sliders. For some reason he wasn't good at his offerings and quickly got into trouble. It was still 2-1 before he gave up the Grand Slam Anthony Volpewhat a time it would have been Dave Roberts to switch to a higher leverage arm to hopefully get Volpe. Instead, he stayed with Hudson and, well, you saw it.

Yes, basically.

I have to think Evan Phillips Would have gotten the call there if he had been healthy. Just one more time in this series that his absence was felt.

If I'm a Yankees fan and their offense doesn't match the Dodgers' 10th, 11th, 12th and 13th best pitches, I would be concerned about how the team will be constructed going forward.

The Yankees' bullpen was forced to throw 5 innings in a game in which they scored 11 runs

That may be a bit oversimplified, but it still happened.

I'm not going to lie: when Freddie Freeman I thought that was it. Not that it only took two runs to win the game, but I thought it was the start of the offense getting going against the Yankees' fourth-best starting pitcher. Luis Gil threw 30 pitches in the first inning but managed to escape further damage. The Dodgers chased him in the fifth inning and cut the deficit to one run. After that, however, the Yankees' bullpen shut out Dodger hitters.

Yes, that's not a good thing. However, the more looks the Dodgers get at the Yankee arms, the more likely they are to eventually find success. Next to Clay Holmes – dem Aaron Boone gives that Brandon Morrow Treatment – ​​no other Yankee reliever appeared in all games. The Dodgers struck out 21 pitches Luke Weaverwhich cannot be overlooked. Mark Ladder and his garbage balls will eventually be marked. The fact is, the Yankees' bullpen arms are good, but not great, and the Dodgers will have a chance to capitalize on that no matter how long the series lasts.

All Dodger high lever guns are available tonight

Since Roberts chose not to bring in Hudson, he either expected Hudson to get out of trouble or had to live with the consequences. The latter happened. That's why the Dodgers have their full complement of weapons ready for tonight. Don't have to throw Blake Treinenwho threw 55 pitches in Games 1 and 2, last night was hopefully a bit of a reset for him for tonight and if the series goes longer than five games. Michael Kopech was tagged in the ninth inning of Game 3, so it also helped that he had the night off. And as nice as it would have been to see it Alex Vesia In the third inning in place of Hudson, Roberts wasn't going to burn his best LHP this early in the game.

Jack Flaherty starts Game 5

Flaherty had a strong performance in Game 1 a bad pitch. It won't be an easy task tonight, but he's more than up to the task. I'm not sure if he will repeat Friday's schedule Yoshinobu Yamamoto And Walker Buhler had some success with his 4-seam fastballs against Yankee hitters, but his fastball is different than theirs. He simply has to be able to do all the pitches well to very well again, because they have seen him once and know what he wants to do. The Dodgers hired Flaherty for situations like this. Ideally it would be like this Tyler Glasnow at this point, but Flaherty isn't a bad consolation prize.

A second look at Gerrit Cole

Cole did his best Justin Verlander Impression against the Dodgers in Game 1 (the Dodgers, by the way, won both of Verlander's starts in 2017). He had a lot of outs with his 4-seam fastball and it didn't look like the Dodgers were as prepared for it as they should have been. He achieved an average speed of 96.7 miles per hour – an increase from the regular season average of 95.9. The Dodgers hit 26 of Cole's four-seamers and had four whiffs, 13 foul balls and nine batters in the game. They went 3:12 with a double and a triple. The average spin rate was slightly higher on all of his spin pitches, but not enough to make a big difference. In total he had nine jumps, which corresponds to a below-average rate of 18%. That's what the Dodgers need to do against Cole tonight. You have to be patient again and punish mistakes. They'll take another look at him tonight, and the data they got from him in Game 1 should come in handy tonight. Of course the batsmen have to show up and not chase (Max Muncy comes to mind).

——

I know you've heard this before, but if you had told us that the Dodgers would be up 3-1 in the series before Game 5, no Dodger fan in the world would have been upset about it. Game 4 left a bit of a sour taste in the mouth, not only because the Yankees' offense looked largely lifeless in the first three games, but also because Freeman gave the Dodgers a 2-0 lead in the first inning. It felt like that was it. Then again, if it weren't for a scheduled bullpen game that only really worked once this postseason, we might be celebrating today.

Instead, we have to wait until tonight. Hopefully.