Dodgers 'Pen Mightier Than Cards Ace

LOS ANGELES -- Early in Joe Torre's storied managing career, when he wasn't quite sure about the intricacies of managing October baseball, veteran bench coach Don Zimmer instilled in him one of the key differences between the regular season and the playoffs.

You pull your starters early.

"I usually have the starter decide his own fate, but Don Zimmer taught me that this postseason stuff is all about not being patient, and doing what you feel you need to do at the time you need to do it," Torre said.

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It was an especially good policy this time around for Torre, whose Dodgers are blessed with one of the deepest, best bullpens in the game. Their 5-3 victory over the Cardinals in Game 1 of the National League Division Series bore the fingerprints of a five-man conga line of relievers after starter Randy Wolf's shaky outing.

"This postseason stuff is all about not being patient, and doing what you feel you need to do at the time you need to do it."
-- Dodgers manager Joe Torre Wolf and Cardinals starter Chris Carpenter were both, well, awful. (Yes, Carpenter is an actual human.) The difference in the game ended up being the fact that Torre had the inclination and the arms to go to his bullpen early, while Cardinals manager Tony La Russa hung with his ace a little too long. The Dodgers scored four runs on nine hits against Carpenter in five innings. It's hard to blame La Russa for leaving the ball in the hands of a guy who might have earned his second Cy Young Award this year, but still, his decision didn't work. Torre's did.

For that, he can thank Jeff Weaver, Ronald Belisario, Hong Chih-Kuo, George Sherrill and Jonathan Broxton.

"They've done a great job all year," Dodgers outfielder Andre Ethier said. "They've been unheralded, but they've saved our offense, saved our rotation. They've been big for us all year. We counted on them at times a little too much to pick us up."

The Dodgers got key contributions from Matt Kemp, who hit a first inning two-run homer to put a dent in Carpenter's aura. From Rafael Furcal, who had three hits and served as a spark plug. Even from Wolf, who managed to make enough big pitches to give up only two runs in 3 2/3 innings of sloppiness.

In the end, though, the reason that the Dodgers are up 1-0 in this series instead of staring at a one-game deficit and Adam Wainwright is that their bullpen did the job for 5 1/3 innings.

"We've got a lot of good arms down there," Sherrill said. "We've got a lot of depth, a lot of guys who can throw the ball hard and have good stuff, too. Any jam we get into it, we feel we can get out of it."

No jam was tougher than the one that Torre handed to Weaver in the fourth inning, when the game was on the line.


Torre had seen enough of Wolf, who waited 11 years to pitch his first playoff game and turned in a clunker. ("Right out of the gate, I felt like it was an uphill climb for me," he said.) He allowed six hits and five walks (two of them intentional), which means that exactly half of the hitters he faced reached base. The bases were loaded in a game the Dodgers led 3-2 when Torre strode to the mound to take the ball from Wolf and give it to Weaver.

"Probably during the season I would be upset getting taken out there, but in this game, I completely understand it," Wolf said.

Weaver came inches away from giving it all up when Ryan Ludwick's would-be double landed inches foul down the left-field line. But then he got Ludwick on a comebacker, ending the inning. He followed with a scoreless fifth. Belisario added a perfect sixth -- the first 1-2-3 inning of the game by either side. Kuo pitched a scoreless seventh, whiffing pinch-hitter Troy Glaus to strand two. Sherrill, he of the 0.65 ERA after his trade from Baltimore, got the first two outs of the eighth.

Torre, who also has no problem using his closer in the eighth in the postseason, summoned Broxton and his 99 mph fastballs for the final four outs. Broxton retired Albert Pujols on a groundout to end the eighth, then gave up an inconsequential run in the ninth on a couple of soft hits before finishing it off, much to the delight of the sellout crowd of 56,000 towel-waving fans.

"Same old Broxton," Sherrill said. "He's had to do it numerous times since I've been here. Come in and get four or five outs, get someone out of trouble, usually me. I think he's one of the best. He's got up to 100 mph he can throw up there and a slider that disappears."

Broxton finished off the night's work for a bullpen that led the National League in ERA and WHIP this season, which helps explain how the Dodgers could win the most games in the league with a rotation of solid-but-unspectacular pitchers.

"It's huge, especially in the postseason, when you got guys that can go out and put up zeroes," Weaver said. "It shortens the game and puts pressure on the other team to score early. If they don't, you feel confident you can maneuver around and win the game late. We're just trying to roll with it and keep it going."