ARLINGTON, Texas -- The Los Angeles Dodgers were three days removed from a taxing seventh game of the National League Championship Series and needed Tony Gonsolin to give them as much as he could as their opener in Game 2 of the World Series on Wednesday. He provided four outs but allowed a home run to the second batter he faced.
With the deficit at only a run and two outs in the top of the fourth, the Dodgers needed Dustin May to keep the game close and bridge the gap to the team's high-leverage relievers. He was charged with three earned runs and exited before the start of the sixth.
The Dodgers cycled through seven pitchers in their 6-4 loss to the Tampa Bay Rays, evening the Fall Classic at one game apiece.
Given the state of their pitching heading in, a loss such as this might have been expected. But it reinforced a problem that could haunt the Dodgers in what remains of this final round: May and Gonsolin, the two young starters counted on to be multidimensional weapons in October, haven't been effective enough. Whether that's due to execution or inexperience or their unconventional usage is anyone's guess.
"I still trust them, I still believe in them, and they just have to make pitches," Dodgers manager Dave Roberts said. "We'll look at the video and see what we can do better at, but they're still gonna need to get big outs for us."
May, 23, and Gonsolin, 26, combined to produce a 2.46 ERA in a combined 102⅔ innings during the regular season, placing themselves squarely in the thick of a deep field for the National League Rookie of the Year Award. Since then, they have been charged with 13 earned runs on 15 hits and 13 walks in 16⅔ innings in the postseason, and they haven't come anywhere close to a traditional five-day schedule.
When Gonsolin took the ball for Game 2 of the NL Championship Series -- in place of Clayton Kershaw, who was scratched that morning because of back spasms -- it marked his first appearance in 17 days. He was charged with five runs in 4⅓ innings. Five days later, he came into the top of the second in Game 7, gave up a leadoff homer to Dansby Swanson, allowed the first three batters to reach in the fourth and was taken out. Three days after that, he opened Game 2 of the World Series.
May was effective as a multi-inning reliever early in the postseason, compiling three scoreless innings in the NL Division Series against the Padres and getting five outs late in Game 1 of the NLCS. But he gave up a run in each of his two innings as an opener in Game 5 and allowed the first three batters to reach as an opener in Game 7. Three days later, he was coming out of the bullpen again.
"It's a big ask, to be quite frank," Roberts said. "Right now, with the off-days, every team is gonna go down a starter, so that's one thing. And so people have to adjust to certain roles. And when you're talking about playing seven days in a row and how you can get as many outs as you can in the CS -- yeah, these guys are in uncharted territory. Credit to them -- they're not making any excuses. They expect themselves to make pitches."
The Dodgers traded Kenta Maeda, let Hyun-Jin Ryu and Rich Hill depart via free agency, and lost David Price after he decided to opt out of the 2020 season. Yet they sported the second-best rotation ERA in the majors in the regular season. May, with his triple-digit sinkers, and Gonsolin, with his nasty sliders, were a major part of that. They came on so strong that the Dodgers felt comfortable plucking from their starting pitching depth before the non-waiver trade deadline, sending clubhouse favorite Ross Stripling to the Toronto Blue Jays so that he could finally solidify a spot in a major league rotation.
But May and Gonsolin haven't come close to resembling the postseason weapons the Dodgers hoped they would be.
On Tuesday, Brandon Lowe, who entered with a .107/.180/.161 slash line this postseason, homered off each of them. With Julio Urias saved for Game 4, Kershaw scheduled for Game 5 and Walker Buehler lined up to take the ball in Games 3 and 7, May and Gonsolin will likely continue in uncertainty.
They'll need to adapt quickly.
"It's different, certainly," Roberts said. "But I still, we still, need those guys to get important outs going forward for us to win this thing."