LOS ANGELES — The Yankees and Dodgers last faced each other in October, with left-hander Fernando Valenzuela in action in the World Series.
He had owned the 1981 model since the first day of the season and never parted with it. Valenzuela made an emergency start on opening day and earned a shutout victory. Thus began an eight-game complete game streak that year, which was as many as the entire Major League Baseball team had throughout two months of this season. His success in throwing screwballs that confuse batters, and his unique style of looking up at the sky, gave birth to “Fernando Mania''. This phenomenon created lifelong Dodgers fans, especially those in Los Angeles who share Mexican roots.
But no game defined Valenzuela quite like Game 3 of the 1981 World Series, and no game was as memorable as the sadness I felt when I learned of his death Tuesday at age 63. His final start of the 20-year-old season that would see him win an unprecedented (yet) Rookie of the Year and Cy Young awards was his fifth in 17 days that postseason. That included a must-win Game 3 with three days off since the Yankees had won the first two games in the Bronx.
Valenzuela allowed two runs in the third inning and two more in the fourth, but was scoreless after that. Los Angeles took the lead in the fifth inning. Valenzuela threw a 147-pitch complete game. The Dodgers won and never lost again.
On Wednesday, the 43rd anniversary of Valenzuela's defining, tenacious performance, the Yankees flew west to face the Dodgers in the World Series in a completely different sport for the first time since 1981. No one has pitched a complete game in the playoffs since Houston's Justin Verlander in Game 2 of the ALCS against the Yankees in 2017, and in the World Series since Kansas City's Johnny Cueto in Game 2 against the Mets in 2015.
If Valenzuela had performed as well as he did today, he would have been ejected in the third or fourth inning. Of his 76 starts this postseason, he has thrown over 100 pitches in only two games, and has only one out in the eighth inning.
But the 120th World Series (the 12th between these storied teams) will largely depend on starting pitching. On paper, the Yankees have the advantage because they can write the names of four Yankees starting pitchers. Los Angeles had to pitch two games out of the bullpen in the NLCS, but manager Dave Roberts has already made it clear that all pitchers will be relief pitchers for at least Game 3 or 4 of the World Series.
“The more innings the Yankees get from their starting pitchers and the more innings they force the Dodgers to use their bullpen, I feel like that's going to be their winning formula,'' a National League official said.
Basically, this feels like the World Series between two versions of the Yankees' offense in the late 1990s. Both players improve their bats, create a lot of traffic on the bases, and get into the opponent's bullpen. This strategy has become less successful in recent years as bullpens have been filled with closer-type monsters rather than middle-of-the-pack weak players.
However, even monsters have a breaking point. The pen is overloaded and overexposed. Since 2019, batters seeing relief for at least the third time in the postseason have posted an .828 OPS in 476 at-bats. They have 21 home runs. On the 20th, Juan Soto defeated Cleveland's Hunter Gaddis to clinch the American League pennant. In the 21st inning, Will Smith hit a two-run homer off the Mets' Phil Mayton, almost clinching Game 6 of the NL CS for the Dodgers.
And scouts who were with the Dodgers in the playoffs say the game content and staying power of traditional starters, especially Jack Flaherty, who started Game 1 against the Mets last time out, is questionable. He'll probably recover after a week's rest.
Yoshinobu Yamamoto's overwhelming seven innings of pitching, with two hits and no runs, produced the Dodgers' highest score in a Baseball Reference Game in 22 regular season games against the Yankees. That was June 7th. He made one more start before missing three months with a rotator cuff injury. In seven starts since his return, including three in the playoffs, the right-hander has not thrown more than 73 pitches or five innings.
This version of Walker Buehler is also only a five-inning pitcher, but the Dodgers can't use Tyler Glasnow, Clayton Kershaw, Gavin Stone, Tony Gonsolin, and Dustin May on the IL.
The Mets can prove that the Dodgers' pen is very good. Still, the Yankees will have to win the war of attrition against the Yankees by knocking out their starting pitchers early to make the game even more difficult for the bullpen. And they have to get innings out of their starting pitchers to protect a good, deep pen so they don't get seen too many times by a strong, long batting lineup.
It starts with Game 1 starter Gerrit Cole. Can he be the main ace twice in this series? Can Carlos Rodon get 18 outs at least once, if not twice? Can Lewis Gil and Clark Schmidt command the Dodgers' batting lineup into the second inning and get 15 outs?
No one needs to throw 147 pitches on three days of rest. The man who accomplished that will be remembered throughout this World Series.
But Aaron Boone could have a rotational advantage here if he can get more out of his starting pitchers and demand more from his relievers.
