World Series Game 4 Preview

Special shoutout to all those who watched the entire 7 hour and 21 minute affair that was game 3 last night. The Dodgers pulled out the marathon win to earn their first victory of the World Series. Today they will look to even the series at 2 games apiece as game 4 gets underway tonight at 8:09 ET.

Dodgers’ Starter

Rich Hill was originally listed as the starter for the Dodgers. However, once the 18 inning gauntlet ended, today’s probable starter for both teams got changed to TBD. I’m not really sure why they would have changed it for the Dodgers, as Hill is far and away the freshest arm the Dodgers have on the team, having not pitched since October 19, coming on in relief of game 6 of the NLCS.

His last start came on October 16, game 4 of the NLCS against the Brewers. He went 5 strong innings in that one, allowing just a run on 3 hits, walking 3 and striking out 6. The 3 walks were a pretty big improvement from his NLDS start where he allowed 5 over 4.1 innings, but still more than he would like to surrender. He even ended up walking one in his relief appearance in game 6 of the NLCS. But he’s not typically a guy who walks that many (less than 3 per 9 innings since coming back to relevancy a few years ago), so we shouldn’t expect this walk issue he has shown so far in the postseason to always be there.

Red Sox Starter

In last night’s game, the Red Sox used Nathan Eovaldi for 6 very good innings out of the bullpen. Even though he gave up the tying run in the 13th (or more appropriately Kinsler did), and gave up the walk off home run to Muncy in the 18th, it was still a very good outing and otherwise saved the Red Sox pitching staff. However, in doing so, he is obviously no longer able to start game 4 of the World Series like originally planned and the Red Sox need to come up with some other solution.

I kinda like this Pomeranz idea, although I’d rather he face more than 1 batter and actually go a couple innings, even if he hasn’t pitched in the postseason yet because he was left off the ALDS and ALCS rosters. He’s fresh, having not pitched in 4 weeks. If he does actually pitch, he could probably go a couple innings and then the Red Sox go to a few righties from there.

The other option that I think they might consider is Eduardo Rodriguez. Rodriguez lasted about a month longer into the season in the rotation over Pomeranz (making his last start on September 20 before a handful of relief appearances), and Rodriguez has actually been used and trusted out of the bullpen through the playoffs. He could probably go 2-3 innings at least, and could be used the same way Pomeranz is proposed above. He only faced 1 batter last night, so theoretically should be ready to fairly well today.

Other Notes

The top of the Red Sox batting order, (Betts, Bogaerts, Moreland/Eovaldi, Martinez/Kinsler) went a combined 0-28 with just a pair of walks last night.

Dave Roberts has made some puzzling bullpen decisions this October, but on the whole he has gotten some pretty good work out of his guys, and more importantly probably hasn’t overworked anyone yet. Last night’s 11 innings of 2 run ball was really good, although 2 shutout innings would have looked much better, but all of the pitchers who pitched last night are likely available again today.

Walker Buehler was amazing yesterday. If the World Series makes it to game 7, and the matchup is Buehler vs Eovaldi, I hope they both pitch as awesome as they did last night.

Eduardo Nuñez had a bit of an adventure last night...

Find the Link

Find the link between Max Muncy and Geoff Blum.