Yoshinobu Yamamoto will be “part” of the Dodgers’ NLDS plan against Padres

Exactly 25 hours before his team's biggest game of the season, Dodgers manager Dave Roberts was sure of only one thing about his pitching plans for Game 5 in the National League Division Series on Friday night.

“Of course, I'm sure Yoshinobu will be a part of it,” Roberts said Thursday, referring to $325 million signing and Game 1 starter Yoshinobu Yamamoto.

What does that mean exactly?

“I just don’t know,” Roberts said.

At least he wasn't ready to say it yet.

When the Dodgers made a late change to their starting lineup for this series last week, they did so with Game 5 in mind.

After initially announcing that acquiring Jack Flaherty at the trade deadline would start Game 1, the Dodgers instead moved Yamamoto to the opener and Flaherty to the second.

The idea was to keep both pitchers available for a possible fifth game, giving Yamamoto his standard five days of rest (a schedule he has followed all season since arriving from Japan) and Flaherty the typical four days of rest that the Most MLB starters put in before the start.

Since then, however, circumstances have changed in the four games the Dodgers and San Diego Padres split to begin Friday's winner-take-all showdown.

Not only was Yamamoto knocked down in Game 1, giving up five runs in three innings, but he was also thought to be twisting his pitches, a problem that plagued him early in his rookie MLB season.

Flaherty, on the other hand, was only slightly better in Game 2, managing to pitch into the sixth inning but also giving up four runs in a loss.

Then, of course, there was the success the Dodgers achieved in a Game 4 bullpen game, shutting out the Padres in nine dominant innings on a night with eight different relievers.

There was one question surrounding Thursday's day off: Would the Dodgers go with a traditional start from Yamamoto or Flaherty or implement a bullpen plan that was tantalizingly effective in Wednesday's elimination game win?

The answer, it seems, could lie somewhere in the middle.

It's likely that Yamamoto will pitch at some point. Flaherty will also be available, according to Roberts. But the lure of another bullpen game still beckons — perhaps one in which Yamamoto and/or Flaherty take over for a few innings but leave most of the game to a lockdown relief corps.

“We’re still talking about it,” Roberts said. “I think the biggest variable is seeing our (replacement) guys go out there today, play catch and see how they feel. That will give us a little bit more information about who ends up bearing the brunt of the game, who starts the game.”

“But after what they did last night,” Roberts added of the bullpen, “it gives everyone pretty confident going into Game 5.”

The simplest scenario might be for the Dodgers to use an opener off Yamamoto and have him come out of the bullpen for bulk innings.

Yamamoto has pitched out of the bullpen before in his career, both as a young pitcher in Japan's Nippon Professional Baseball League and last year with the country's national team in the World Baseball Classic.

Roberts said Yamamoto told the team he was ready to do it again Friday night.

“I just feel like he’ll do anything we ask him to do,” Roberts said.

As for Yamamoto's possible pitch-tipping problem in Game 1, Roberts said the 25-year-old right-hander has been “cleaning things up” over the last week.

“Where Yoshinobu is, I feel really comfortable,” Roberts said.

That didn't stop Roberts from illustrating the benefits of a pitching plan with more bullpen content – especially given the 0.93 ERA from the team's seven leverage relievers (Michael Kopech, Blake Treinen, Evan Phillips, Daniel Hudson, Ryan Brasier, Alex Vesia and Anthony Banda). ) have come together for this series.

“There’s a lot of neutrality with our guys,” Roberts said. “I feel like we have a lot of different guys that we can use in certain lanes or in certain spots.”

It remains to be seen where Yamamoto or anyone else on the team fits into Friday's script.

“I think our only focus,” Roberts said, “is finding the best pitchers to prevent runs tomorrow.”

It's a task that will determine the fate of the Dodgers' season.