One way to keep Dodger relievers from ruining the team’s postseason run is to keep the bullpen gate closed for as long as possible.

Blake Snell gave that strategy a whirl in Game 1 of the National League wild-card series Tuesday, pitching a solid — sometimes brilliant —- seven innings. But even then he and his teammates had to wait out the nightly bullpen meltdown before escaping with a 10-5 win over the Cincinnati Reds to take a 1-0 lead in the best-of-three series.

“Blake was fantastic tonight,” manager Dave Roberts said. “You could see he was in complete control. The fastball was great. The change-up was plus.

“Kind of mixing and matching and he really was in control the entire game.”

The bullpen? Not so much. But we’ll get to that in a minute.

Read more:Plaschke: Dodgers flatten overmatched Reds in unwanted first round. But about that bullpen...

For Snell, it was that mixing and matching that made him so tough, Cincinnati manager Terry Francona said.

“The big difference-maker was his change-up,” Francona said. “It was his ability to manipulate the change-up, even vary it. He'd throw one that was 87 [mph] and one that was 82. And he threw two, three, four in a row at times at times, all different speeds.

“You throw a 97 [mph fastball] in there, and it becomes difficult.”

Snell was efficient from the start, retiring the side in the first on seven pitches. He set down the first eight Reds in order, then after giving up a double and walk in the third, retired the next 10 in a row, allowing him to pitch deep into the game.

Given the bullpen’s continued struggles, that’s likely to be a blueprint the Dodgers will continue to follow in the playoffs.

“It felt good to go deep in the ballgame,” said Snell, whose seven innings matched a season high. “I felt really in control, I could read swings and just kind of navigate through the lineup.

“The deeper that the starters go in the game, it means we're pitching good. But it means you're giving the bullpen a break. So it just makes for a different game that favors us.”

Tuesday’s start was Snell’s 11th, for three teams, in the postseason. But it was his first since 2022. Getting back to October was one reason why the left-hander signed with the Dodgers 10 months ago (the five-year $182-million contract the team was offered was another reason).

 “It's awesome,” said Snell, who was wearing a blue hoodie emblazoned with the Dodgers playoff slogan “Built For Fall” across the front. “There's nothing better than pitching a postseason game in front of your home crowd. To be able to enjoy that, it meant a lot.”

And Snell took advantage, breezing into the seventh having given up just a hit. He didn’t give up a run until Elly De La Cruz’s fielder’s choice grounder with two out in the inning.

De La Cruz would score the Reds’ second run on Tyler Stephenson’s double three pitches later.

Snell got the next hitter to end the threat, with the seven innings pitched marking a career playoff best. He had matched his playoff high with nine strikeouts by the sixth inning, which he needed just 70 pitches to complete. He wound up throwing 91 pitches, giving up four hits and a walk, before Roberts went to the bullpen to start the eighth, with predictable results.

Alex Vesia was the first man through the gate and he retired just one of the three batters he faced. He was followed by flamethrower Edgardo Henriquez, who walked the first two hitters and gave up a hit to the third, forcing in two runs.

Jack Dreyer was next and he walked in another run. After entering the inning down by eight runs, Cincinnati brought the tying run to the on-deck circle with one out.

Dreyer eventually settled down, retiring the side, but the three pitchers needed 59 pitches — and 30 minutes — to get through the inning. By the time Blake Treinen came on to finish things off, starter Emmet Sheehan had started warming up.

Read more:Dodgers open playoffs with displays of dominance and disorder in win over Reds

All told, Roberts needed four relievers to get the final six outs, leaving the Dodgers hoping for a Snell-like performance from Yoshinobu Yamamoto in Game 2 on Wednesday to avoid straining the bullpen further.

“Those guys are on their heels with the lead we have,” Roberts said of the Reds entering the eighth inning. “When you start being too fine and getting behind, you start giving them free bases, that's how you can build innings and get momentum. So that's what I saw in that inning there for sure.

“If we don't feel comfortable using certain guys with an eight-run lead, then we've got to think through some things.” 

Maybe Snell will get a chance to finish what he starts next time out. It’s certainly no worse than the alternative.

Sign up for more Dodgers news with Dodgers Dugout. Delivered at the start of each series.

This story originally appeared in Los Angeles Times.

This isn’t a series, it’s calisthenics.

The Dodgers shouldn’t be here battling baseball’s junior varsity, and they know it, and they’re intent on pounding and pitching their way out of this embarrassing situation as quickly as possible.

Wild card round? The defending champions are nobody’s wild card.

The Cincinnati Reds? Human byes.

October came a day early to Chavez Ravine Tuesday and the shouldn’t-be-here Dodgers welcomed it with their annoyance, tying a club postseason record with five homers and dismantling the Reds 10-5 in the opener of a three-game wild-card series that should be mercifully completed by midweek.

Read more:Dodgers waste no time finding their October groove in Game 1 win over Reds

The Dodgers finished 10 games ahead of the Reds in the standings, and won five out of six during the regular season, and only got lumped with the pretenders when their bullpen fell apart and they blew a chance at having the week off.

If the Dodgers had taken care of business they would have finished with one of the two best records in the National League and would have drawn a first-round bye as they did the previous three seasons. But, no, they finished behind Milwaukee and Philadelphia and so, even though they claimed the National League West title for the 12th time in 13 years, they were forced into a three-games-at-home wild card round.

Hello, Reds.

Good-bye, Reds.

The Dodgers will sweep this series with a win in Game 2 Wednesday, and considering they’re sending ace Yoshinobu Yamamoto to the mound, a victory seems likely. In any event, there’s no way the Reds are winning two straight at rollicking Dodger Stadium, so book your attention to Philadelphia this weekend for the beginning of the five-game division series against the Phillies.

The only way the Reds made it this far was because the New York Mets stumbled down the stretch and lost in Miami on the final day of the season. And if Tuesday was any indication, there’s no way the Reds are getting out of here alive.

The Dodgers knocked them backward on the game’s fifth pitch with a scorching home run by Shohei Ohtani against Reds ace Hunter Greene, the second consecutive year Ohtani has started the Dodgers postseason with a longball.

The Dodgers knocked them flat two innings later with four runs on homers by last season’s playoff heroes Teoscar Hernández and Tommy Edman.

The game was over within its first hour, and the Dodgers were just getting started.

Hernández later added a second home run and, oh yeah, so did Ohtani, two of last season’s postseason stars who love the moment.

“I think it's the clutch gene,” said Dodger Manager Dave Roberts. “I think they're not afraid to fail. They like the spotlight. And it's just a really good heartbeat for those guys in those big moments.”

And to think, neither qualified as the game’s hero.

That title belonged to starter Blake Snell, who fooled the Reds into quick swings, wild swings, silly swings, and just four hits with nine strikeouts in seven innings. Perhaps just as important, he lasted 91 pitches, allowing Dodger Manager Dave Roberts to stay out the dreaded bullpen as long as humanely possible.

“The deeper that the starters go in the game, one, it means we're pitching good; but, two, it means you're giving the bullpen a break and breather,” said Snell. “And they get to be 100 percent every time they come out. So it just makes for a different game that favors us.” 

Of course, Roberts had to eventually crack that left-field door, and disaster very nearly occurred when three Dodger relievers accounted for four walks that led to three eighth-inning runs. But Jack Dreyer managed to get two outs with the bases loaded and Blake Treinen finished the game by allowing just a bloop single in the ninth.

“If we don't feel comfortable using certain guys with an eight-run lead, then we've got to think through some things,” said a dismayed Roberts.

It turns out, even the weakest part of this Dodger team was enough to eventually quiet the visitors, who shouldn’t be here too much longer.

It’s almost as if the Reds were intimidated even before the game began, as the Dodgers buried them in their thickest pregame brine.

Ice Cube was on the video board screaming that it’s time for Dodger baseball. Mariachi Joe Kelly was on the mound delighting the roaring crowd with a ceremonial first pitch that appropriately bounced. Keith Williams Jr. was bringing the chills with his usual falsetto-laden national anthem.

Jason Alexander was on the video board begging the fans to cheer louder… wait a minute. Jason Alexander? Didn’t his Seinfeld character work for the New York Yankees? What was he doing in the heart of Dodgerland? No wonder the fans were ignoring him.

Alexander’s appearance was one of the only mistakes on a night that gave hope that the Dodgers’ late-season steam — they finished 9-2 and led the league in scoring in the final weeks — could carry them far past this miserable little first-round dalliance.

“Momentum is real,” Roberts said, later adding, “I think that whether it's the Rangers find their way into the postseason to then win the World Series or some team finishing hot and remaining hot or in a particular game, I do believe in a postseason game, momentum is real.”

As usual at Chavez Ravine, that momentum built as the game went along, rare empty seats in the stands but full-throated scream from the fans, yet another reason the Dodgers blew it by not getting home-field advantage in later rounds.

“I do love being at home because a lot of times that's what perpetuates it, the home crowd, the energy,” said Roberts.

But, seriously, about that bullpen…

Before the game, Dodgers baseball boss Andrew Friedman bravely faced the question of his bullpen, a mess that he created with poor winter signings and unwise midseason inactivity.

Not surprisingly, he defended his guys.

“They've had stretches of good, they've had some stretches where it's been really tough and challenging,” he acknowledged. “At the end of the day, as we're working through it the last couple of weeks, it's not a talent issue.”

In other words, they’re competent relievers just going through a bad, awful, horrible, season-altering stretch?

“Relievers, kind of like place kickers, are tightrope walkers,” Friedman said. “It's what they do for a living. They do well, people forget about them. They don't do well and they're in the ire of everything. So it's tough.”

Read more:Dodgers hit 5 home runs and Blake Snell shines in Game 1 win over Reds

Friedman said it’s a matter of confidence, which is understandable when a group gets hammered all season like these guys.

“And when the confidence is wavering, the execution is off,” Friedman said. “When the execution is off, you get behind and you come in zone and you're just more likely to take on damage. So it's kind of that imperfect storm in a lot of ways.”

Storm, is right. What kind of bullpen fools around with an eight-run lead, as the Dodgers reliever did Tuesday night when threatening to ruin everything?

The bullpen survived, but for how long? This series may soon be over, but Philadelphia awaits. This first step into October was an impressive one. It will also be the easiest one.

Sign up for more Dodgers news with Dodgers Dugout. Delivered at the start of each series.

This story originally appeared in Los Angeles Times.

The Yankees' bullpen has been much-maligned all season and was the team's weakness heading into the postseason.

So it's no surprise the bullpen was at the forefront of the team's Game 1 loss to the Red Sox on Tuesday -- coupled with the removal of starter Max Fried, of course. But while the decision to pull Fried after 6.1 innings will be scrutinized, bringing in Luke Weaver will also be questioned, and manager Aaron Boone was asked his thoughts on bringing in the right-hander in the spot he did.

"I am just taking that part of the order, then I want [Devin] Williams or [Fernando] Cruz in that kind of [Trevor] Story, [Alex] Bregman [lane]. So I will take Weave at the bottom of the order, especially an out in the books."

Weaver, who became the team's closer on their World Series run a year ago, has struggled in 2025. He finished the regular season with a 3.62 ERA but pitched to a 9.64 ERA in September, ballooned by a couple of bad outings in the middle of the month. But the 32-year-old didn't have it on Tuesday.

With one out in the seventh, Weaver went up against Ceddanne Rafaela, and lost him to a walk after getting ahead in the count 0-2. A hustle double by Nick Sogard put the Yankees in trouble. Nursing a 1-0 lead, Weaver left a pitch up in the zone to pinch-hitter Masataka Yoshida, who laced a two-run single to capture the lead.

"Gets ahead 0-2 with Rafaela there and lost the strike zone," Boone said of the outing. "Placed a couple hits on him where, maybe just a little up with a couple of the pitches more than he wanted. But, you know, getting ahead 0-2 to Rafaela and losing him, that's the one that stinks a little bit."

"Just a really good at-bat, had some really strong at-bats in the past. It’s gone both ways," Weaver said of his at-bat with Rafaela. "That’s a real tough one to swallow when you know you had him in an advantage count. He did a really good job of spoiling some pitches, took some shots, and next thing you know, it’s 3-2, and he did a good job of battling through. Didn’t want to give in, and try to throw a cookie over the plate, still trying to execute. There’s a base open, so I just tried to rifle one and it didn’t go where I wanted."

Entering Tuesday, Rafaela was 2-for-6 with a walk and two home runs against Weaver in his career. There are also three strikeouts in there as well, but Rafaela was victorious when it mattered in Game 1, working a walk after 11 pitches.

Boone was aware of the numbers Rafaela had against Weaver, but felt the spot was right for him.

"I felt good about him going through there, the Sogard and then probably a pinch hit lefty there, just trying to shorten it with Williams and [David] Bednar behind him," Boone said.

Weaver felt his outing overall was "very competitive," but it wasn't perfect and the Red Sox found holes. Weaver allowed two runs without recording an out. Cruz would come in and get the final two outs -- after a two-out walk.

"I know there’s a lot of disappointed people, including myself, but just got to be better," Weaver said.

The Yankees need Weaver and the rest of the bullpen to be better -- Bednar would allow a key insurance run in the ninth -- if they hope to overcome the Red Sox in the Wild Card round, and make a deep October run. The first step is winning Game 2 on Wednesday. 

This year, October started a day early for the Dodgers.

Thanks to their underwhelming regular season, their march toward postseason history began before the month even started.

This season’s team, coaches and players acknowledged repeatedly in recent weeks, had played their way into this spot: Having to begin the playoffs on the last day of September, in a daunting best-of-three wild-card series against the Cincinnati Reds on Tuesday; facing the slimmest of margins in their pursuit of back-to-back World Series championships, having won the National League West but failed to secure a top-two playoff spot.

That meant, unlike the last three years, the Dodgers did not have a bye to the division series.

Read more:Plaschke: Dodgers flatten overmatched Reds in unwanted first round. But about that bullpen...

It meant, this fall, they had to hit the ground running.

“The pitfalls are just [avoiding] kind of easing your way into a series,” manager Dave Roberts said Tuesday afternoon.

But, he added declaratively, “I don't see that as a problem.”

In a 10-5 Game 1 defeat of the Reds at Dodger Stadium, it indeed was not.

Shohei Ohtani led off with a home run. Blake Snell was superb in a seven-inning, two-run start. And in a rollocking two-batter sequence in the bottom of the third inning, the Dodgers broke the score wide open, with Teoscar Hernández hitting a three-run bomb moments before Tommy Edman went back-to-back with a solo shot.

The Dodgers’ troublesome bullpen made things uncomfortable at the end, nearly walking the Reds out of a 10-2 deficit in a three-run eighth inning that included four free passes (two of them with the bases loaded) from three different relievers.

Nonetheless, the Dodgers held on. And now, with Game 2 on Wednesday at 6:08 p.m., just one more win will advance them through the opening round.

For most of the night, this game was everything the Dodgers hoped it would be, extending the momentum from their 15-5 finish to the regular season with star-studded offense (they matched a franchise postseason record with five home runs) and dominant starting pitching (Snell’s seven innings were a new personal postseason high).

Ohtani delivered the first blow, taking Reds starter and Los Angeles native Hunter Greene deep on the right-hander’s fourth pitch. Behind 2-and-1 in the count, Greene tried to go inside with his trademark 100-mph fastball. Ohtani, fresh off a 55-homer regular season that should earn him his fourth MVP award, turned it around with a 117.7-mph line drive that rocketed into the right field pavilion.

From there, the Dodgers’ offense never looked back.

In the bottom of the third, the team landed a knockout blow. Hernández got a hanging slider from Greene and — in a scene so reminiscent of his heroics last October — sent a three-run home run sailing deep to left, flipping his bat as he skipped out of the box.

A crowd of 50,555 had barely settled back into its seats before the Dodgers went yard again, this time on a hooking fly ball from Edman that wrapped around the right-field foul pole, giving the Dodgers a 5-0 lead.

That was plenty for Snell, who picked apart a Reds offense that ranked just 14th in scoring and 19th in batting average during the regular season. In a four-hit, nine-strikeout, 91-pitch start, he got quick outs with his fastball early in counts, and snapped off a wicked combination of curveballs and changeups to put them away when he got to two strikes.

The Reds — who were no-hit by Snell last year when he pitched for the San Francisco Giants — didn’t get their first hit until Matt McLain doubled with two outs in the third. And though TJ Friedl walked in the next at-bat, Snell responded with three swing-and-miss changeups to Noelvi Marte to retire the side.

That was the start of 11 consecutive batters Snell would set down in a row, not letting another Cincinnati hitter reach base until Austin Hays’ seventh-inning single sparked a two-run rally that got the Reds on the board.

By then, the Dodgers had kept adding onto their lead. In the fifth, Hernández hit his second home run of the game off right-hander Connor Phillips (one of the Reds’ best relievers late in the season). Ohtani did the same in the sixth, belting his second long ball (also against Phillips) on a 454-foot blast that landed near the top of the right-field stands.

Read more:A 'really grateful' catcher Ben Rortvedt is thrust into Dodgers' postseason plans

The score was 10-2 when Roberts finally turned to his bullpen in the eighth, trying to take no chances by summoning top left-hander Alex Vesia. Vesia, however, wasn’t sharp, retiring only one of the three batters he faced. And after that, the Dodgers flirted with an unthinkable collapse.

Edgardo Henriquez gave up two walks (one to load the bases, another to force in a run) and an RBI single. Jack Dreyer followed with the inning’s fourth free pass, again with the bases loaded, before finally escaping on a strikeout of Tyler Stephenson (who three times swung at what would’ve been yet another ball four) and a pop-up from Ke’Bryan Hayes.

The bullpen concerns will hang like a cloud over the team going forward. Even in the ninth, Blake Treinen had to work around a two-out single from Gavin Lux.

Still, as the calendar officially flips to October, the Dodgers are already one step closer to defending their title.

Sign up for more Dodgers news with Dodgers Dugout. Delivered at the start of each series.

This story originally appeared in Los Angeles Times.

Playoff life comes at you fast. Especially in the treacherous, best-of-three Wild Card round.

The MLB postseason has just started – they only recently hung the playoff bunting at Yankee Stadium, for crying out loud – and the Yankees are already facing elimination after losing to the Red Sox, 3-1, in Tuesday night’s opener. 

A season in which they tied for the best record in the American League – but lost out on a first-round bye because they did not hold a tiebreaker – is suddenly, perhaps cruelly, in peril. Boston, a club that has dominated the Yankees this season, can finish them off Wednesday night in Game 2. In the Bronx, no less.

The Yanks are tangling with a historic rival, one that beat them 9 of 13 during the regular season. And history. Recent history, anyway – in the previous three years of this current MLB playoff format, no team that lost the opener of a Wild Card round ended up winning the series.

We’ll see, of course, if these Yankees can buck that trend. And, even though they knew coming into this series how difficult it would be, they say they can do it.

“We are going to show up (Wednesday) and I expect us to do pretty well,” Aaron Boone said at his post-game press conference. Later, he added, “Look, we have been playing these types of games for a while now. We have been playing with a lot on the line seemingly every single day.

“So (Tuesday) was a great baseball game that we just couldn't get that final punch in. So we will be ready to go, and I expect us to come out and get one (Wednesday).”

Boone’s right about the quality of the contest. It was a taut game filled with brilliant pitching by Boston’s Garret Crochet and Yankee ace Max Fried. Anthony Volpe gave the Yanks an early 1-0 lead with a homer off Crochet. But the Yankee bullpen later surrendered that lead. The Yanks loaded the bases with nobody out in the ninth inning against old buddy Aroldis Chapman, but Chapman, maybe baseball’s best reliever this year, escaped.

Before the game, Boone opined that the 2025 version of the Yankees might be the best he’s ever taken into the playoffs in his tenure as manager, which started in 2018 and has included an October trip every season but one. They won their final eight games of the regular season, were healthy, full of mutual trust and confidence. They also, he said, have “different ways to beat ya.”

Better pluck one from the pile Wednesday night. Maybe it’s Carlos Rodón, the lefty starter who’s taking the ball against Brayan Bello of the Red Sox. Rodón had a terrific season, but still makes some fans nervous with a big start looming. Maybe he needs to be great to save this Yankee season.

Rodón had some October moments during last year’s run to the World Series, but he was also so hyper during a playoff start against the Royals that it seemed to wobble him. Boone says Rodón has learned.

“He has done a really good job since he has been here of learning from some stumbles, learning from some good times,” Boone said. “Last year – I am hoping that serves him well and just really slowing things down, really controlling moments, because that’s an important thing to have.”

Perhaps we should offer these Yankees the benefit of the doubt. After all, they resurrected themselves later in this season, even after some of their own fans wrote them off as they fumbled their AL East lead and plunged into a morass of poor play. They pushed aside their problems with fundamentals and, while they obviously haven’t solved all their bullpen issues, added help there at the trade deadline.

Their superlative offense, which led baseball in runs per game, covered up some deficiencies, too. By August, the Yanks were on fire, started beating good teams and finished 34-14 over their final 48 games, best in MLB.

“We’ve been doing it all year,” said Aaron Judge. “There’s a lot of veterans in this clubhouse. We’ve been through some stuff. Been to the World Series, been through some tough moments. We’ll go out and play our game. We’ll be good.”

If they’re not, they’re cooked. Seems weird for it to get so real so quickly, considering there’s no October chill yet (it was 77 degrees at first pitch Tuesday). Heck, Game 1 wasn’t even played in October. But here we are.

From the brink, can the Yankees win Wednesday night and push the Red Sox close to the abyss, too? After Game 1, they sure said all the right things, noting that they had done some of the right things during the season.

Now they must do them again, just to survive another day.