The Toronto Blue Jays head to the West Coast tied with the Los Angeles Dodgers in the World Series. After dominating Blake Snell and the Dodgers bullpen in Game 1 at the Rogers Centre, Yoshinobu Yamamoto silenced the bats with a complete game, one earned run gem that swung the momentum back to the NL side.

One thing that makes the Dodgers a tricky customer is their rotation. It is beyond stacked, possessing ace-level calibre arms through a majority of their rotation.

Snell and Yamamoto already started in this series, and the Jays will face Tyler Glasnow tonight while awaiting Shohei Ohtani tomorrow night at Dodger Stadium. That is a deadly rotation to go against when they are healthy and firing on all cylinders, proven by their combined 1.84 ERA this postseason and allowing just 16 earned runs through 78 1/3 innings.

This is a stark contrast to their bullpen, which has struggled mightily this October. The relief corps has struggled mightily to replicate the success of their rotation counterparts and owns a 6.16 ERA through 30 2/3 innings this postseason. They’ve also allowed 21 runs during that span and have walked 20 batters compared to 23 punchouts, leaving much to be desired amongst the group. The Dodgers are also without two relievers in Tanner Scott and Alex Vesia, with Scott out of the lineup due to injury, while Vesia had to return home to be with his family for personal matters.

Of the relievers, the only player finding success at this time is Roki Sasaki, the de facto closer this postseason. The starter turned closer this October has allowed just three hits and one earned run in his first postseason with Los Angeles, and is their most trusted reliever at this time. The likes of Blake Treien, Anthony Banda, and Emmet Sheehan have struggled to produce when called upon, and even Clayton Kershaw got rocked during his lone postseason appearance against the Phillies, allowing four earned runs and two homers across two innings pitched.

Because the Dodgers’ starters have gone deep into games, and with playing just above the bare minimum in games in previous series (2-0 over the Reds, 3-1 over the Phillies, and 4-0 over the Brewers), several Dodgers relievers haven’t pitched in some time. For example, Jack Dreyer hasn’t pitched since October 8th against the Phillies, while Will Klein and Justin Wrobleski made their postseason debuts during the drubbing on Friday by Toronto. Edgardo Henriguez is also lurking in the bullpen, and he hasn’t pitched since September 30th, when the Dodgers faced the Cincinnati Reds. He allowed one earned run and two walks without recording an out.

There have been some moving parts in the Dodgers’ relief corps (Vesia, Scott, and Ben Casparius), so the likes of Klein and Wrobleski haven’t appeared on every series roster, but the mainstays outside of Sasaki aren’t finding much success on the diamond, and it’s the advantage the Blue Jays need to play into this week in Los Angeles.

With the likes of Glasnow, Ohtani, and Snell lurking again over the next three days, the quicker the Jays can get to the starter and into the bullpen, the better their odds.

As seen with Yamamoto, if the Jays’ bats can’t capitalize on mistake pitches or with runners in scoring position, manager Dave Roberts will let these guys go the distance, and they can really carry that momentum over the course of the full game. Once the Jays got to Snell on Friday and the Dodgers had to turn to the bullpen, that’s where the wheels fell off, with Sheehan struggling before Banda allowed the home runs to Barger and Kirk to put up nine runs in the inning.

Whether it is drawing out at-bats by fouling off pitches or battling in counts to drive up the starter’s pitch count, the Jays can put themselves in a better spot to win by getting to this Dodgers bullpen as fast as possible.

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