Biggest questions for NLDS Game 5: Another bullpen game for Dodgers? Can Padres’ Luis Arraez wake up?

The 2024 Major League Baseball postseason continues on Friday with Game 5 of the National League Division Series between the Los Angeles Dodgers and San Diego Padres. The Dodgers won a win-or-go-home Game 4 on Wednesday to force the decisive Game 5 at Dodger Stadium on Friday. The winner will face the New York Mets in the Championship Series. The loser goes home.

The first pitch of Game 5 is scheduled for 8:08 p.m. ET. To set the scene for this pivot contest, let’s lay out one key question for each team heading into Friday’s action.

Dodgers: How aggressive will they be with their bullpen?

I can tell you the answer to this question: very. Yoshinobu Yamamoto is starting Game 5 and he didn’t pitch particularly well in Game 1, allowing five runs in three innings. Yamamoto has not thrown more than 79 pitches in a game since returning from a shoulder issue in early September. Clearly, the Dodgers are not looking for him to throw seven innings and 100 pitches. The question is, are they going to push him as far as he can go, or are they looking for him to get through the lineup once, and that’s all?

“How Yoshinobu is a part of [Game 5], we’re still talking through it,” Dodgers manager Dave Roberts said Thursday. “I think the main variable is seeing our guys go out there today, play catch, see how they feel, which will give us a little bit more information on ultimately who takes the brunt of the game.”

The Dodgers ran a bullpen game out of necessity in Game 4 — they have seven starting pitchers on the injured list — and it worked extremely well. They used eight pitchers, none for more than five outs, and they held the Padres scoreless on seven hits and two walks. No Padres hitter faced a pitcher more than once. That’s the entire point of a bullpen game, right? To not show the hitter the same look multiple times. Every at-bat is a new challenge. There’s no familiarity.

“It’s a big part of it,” Roberts said about the successful Game 4 bullpen game factoring into their Game 5 pitching plan. “And also, I feel that we can mix some things around as far as lanes and runs again because of the neutrality and the confidence that our pen has. But coming off of what they did [in Game 4] makes everyone feel pretty confident going into Game 5.”

How long Yamamoto stays in the game will have as much to do with Yamamoto as anything. If he comes out of the gate well, the Dodgers will take as many outs as he can give them. But, if he stubbles as he did in Game 1 and really all year against the Padres (13 runs in nine innings in three starts), Roberts can have a quick hook. Bullpen games can be dicey; all it takes is one reliever to have an off-day to ruin things, but it might be the Dodgers’ best chance to win Game 5.

Dodgers bonus question: How healthy is Freddie Freeman? Not very, we know that much. Freeman was not in the lineup for the win-or-go-home Game 4 tells you that right ankle sprain is really bad. It must have killed him to miss that game. The Dodgers said Thursday that Freeman will play in Game 5. I guess the question isn’t how healthy is Freeman, it’s how much can he contribute? He has looked pretty hobbled throughout the series.

Padres: Will the offense wake back up?

The Padres scored six runs in a chaotic second inning in Game 3, a rally capped by Fernando Tatis Jr.‘s titanic two-run home run. They haven’t scored since. The Padres haven’t scored in their last 15 innings, and in those 15 innings, they have seven singles, one double, one triple, and three walks (one intentional). They’ve had only seven runners make it to second base and one make it to third base. For close to two games now, the San Diego bats have been silent.

“[We went] 0-for-9 with runners in scoring position. Clearly, they did a nice job,” Padres manager Mike Shildt said after the Game 4 loss. “So we didn’t get the proverbial big hit and string anything really together.”

It has been a quiet series for Luis Arraez, who is 3 for 18 (.167) without a walk in the four games. It goes without saying that there needs to be a change in Game 5. Arraez is the leadoff hitter and catalyst. He is tasked with getting on for Tatis and Jurickson Profar and Manny Machado, and he hasn’t done that yet in this series. It’s a testament to the rest of the San Diego lineup that they made it to Game 5 without Arraez contributing much. To beat the Dodgers, though, they need something from him.

As we saw in that second inning in Game 4, and also in those late-inning outbursts in Game 3, the Padres can flip the switch offensively real quick. They can put runs on the board in a hurry because they have power throughout the lineup and also because they had baseball’s lowest strikeout rate (by a lot) during the regular. If the Padres lose, it won’t be because they swing and miss too much. After 15 straight scoreless innings in Games 3 and 4, they need the offense to wake up in Game 5.

Padres bonus question: Can Yu Darvish do it again? Darvish was marvelous in the Game 2 win, spinning seven innings of one-run ball and needing only 82 pitches to do it. He missed most of the summer with a personal matter and pitched quite well after returning in September. In a way, Darvish is in midseason form right now, while most other starters have 200 or so innings on their arm. If Darvish struggles early, Shildt will have a quick hook. Don’t be surprised if we see Game 3 starter Michael King come out of the bullpen on his throw day. He’s spent most of his career as a setup reliever and is familiar with pitching out of the bullpen.