The Dodgers are set up beautifully for the NLCS

The Los Angeles Dodgers are heading to their third National League Championship Series in five years. This will be their fifth NLCS in their last 10 years. As a gentle reminder, the Dodgers haven’t actually won an NLCS since this video was in heavy rotation:

So if you’re skeptical of the Dodgers’ chances, or if you’re quietly waiting for them to screw up again, I can understand that impulse. What has happened in the past counts for a little something, especially when some of the same folks are involved.

But I’m here to argue that the Dodgers are in better shape than they usually are. They are, in fact, in the best shape for the NLCS than they’ve been in the last decade, and either the Cubs and Nationals are heading for a messy trap. The reason is simple, so I won’t spend 1,000 words on it: They didn’t need to deploy any of their pitchers on short rest in the NLDS.

Specifically, they didn’t need to use Clayton Kershaw on short rest. That’s important.

For the last four postseasons, the Dodgers have used Kershaw on short rest in the NLDS. They’ve won their division titles handily, which allowed them to line their ace up for Game 1, just like they would want it. And then they would bring him back on short rest on game four when they wanted to a) close out a series they were leading or b) save a series they were trailing. Every danged time.

The failure of the Diamondbacks wasn’t that they couldn’t beat the Dodgers. There’s no shame in that. It’s that they couldn’t win a single game and force them to get weird in Game 4. Now the Dodgers are set up beautifully.

Take the last two NLCS appearances, for example. In 2013, the Dodgers used Kershaw on short rest in Game 4 of the NLDS, and then kept him on regular rest in the NLCS. In his first appearance in the NLCS, he allowed just one unearned run. In his second, he allowed a bunch of ground balls that found holes and then his bullpen flopped, not that it mattered with Dodgers’ lack of run support, don’t email me, I remember it better than you. There’s no reason to think that the short rest was the reason for that series loss.

But they certainly weren’t set up as well as they are for this season. The Dodgers weren’t keen on using Kershaw on short rest when they fell behind the Cardinals specifically because of that short rest in the NLDS. That Game 4 start essentially removed a card from the deck. Would the Cardinals still have won? Perhaps. But what the Dodgers did in the NLDS was still looming over them.

In 2016, the Dodgers had a different plan with a lot of similar elements. They were going to use Kershaw as their secret weapon, but even more than usual. He started Game 1 of the NLDS, came back in Game 4 on short rest to help keep the season alive, and then came back on ultra-super-short rest in Game 5 to pick up the save.

Kershaw then pitched a masterpiece in Game 2 of the NLCS, tossing the monkey on his back into a running garbage disposal, and it looked like the myth of his unclutchitude was finally dead. Except he wasn’t sharp in Game 6, which allowed everyone to forget whatever happened before that.

Would he have been sharper without the short rest, without the dramatic moonlighting as a closer? There’s no way to tell, which means there’s no way to argue on behalf of that point and be taken seriously. But, yes, he would have been sharper. I’m sure of it, and you can’t prove me wrong, nyah nyah nyahhhhh.

Kershaw threw exactly 100 pitches in Game 1 of the NLDS this year. For the first time since the Dodgers have had him, there will be no Game 4. They seemed resolute that they were going to start Alex Wood, and I believe them, but you never knew if there was going to be some sort of relief weirdness, some neo-postseason twist that got him into the game by the fourth inning.

He’s going to be lined up exactly the way he’s supposed to be. For once. He’ll start the first game of the NLCS, like a normal ace. Behind him, the Dodgers will have Rich Hill (78 pitches thrown in the NLDS), Yu Darvish (74 pitches), and Alex Wood (0 pitches). Kenley Jansen will have thrown 3⅔ innings. The entire team will have four days of rest.

It might take one poorly timed hanging curveball to make this all useless. There have been postseason teams similarly set up this well, only to stumble when the actual baseball starts. But the larger point stands: The Dodgers have been in the NLCS before, but they’ve never been in this sweet of a spot. Now it’s up to the players — the players on the team that won 104 games — to win four more games. If they can’t do it, at least there will be fewer regrets and what-ifs than usual.