It would be easy to assume that the Dodgers bullpen is just another part of the club bought and paid for by means of the organization’s massive and unrivaled resources. With the team’s payroll and competitive-balance expenses coming to roughly $250 million this season — itself a substantive decrease over the $300 million outlays of the 2014-16 campaigns — the Dodgers clearly have the capacity to spend with little restraint. And they’ve certainly utilized some of that financial might to the end of bullpen construction: the club, for example, brought back free-agent closer Kenley Jansen by guaranteeing him $80 million over five seasons.

For the most part, however, the Dodgers haven’t built their bullpen on high-salaried free agents or top prospects. Instead, they’ve mostly cobbled it together with a series of low-risk trades and signings, addressing needs in-season when needed without giving up prospects of significance.

Los Angeles opened up this season with a payroll of about $235 million. Close to $50 million of that total was designated for players no longer on the roster. Of the remaining money, half went to the starting rotation. Another 40% was earmarked for Andre Ethier, Adrian Gonzalez, Yasmani Grandal, Yasiel Puig, and Justin Turner. As far as the bullpen, there was Kenley Jansen and his big salary, of course. The second-highest salary in the bullpen at the start of the season went to Sergio Romo, though, who was guaranteed $3 million by the club in February. That figure was the third-highest guarantee the Dodgers have made to a reliever since Andrew Friedman took over operations after the 2014 season. That’s three full offseasons, and the second-biggest free agent guarantee the team has made to a reliever was the $4 million for Joe Blanton a few years ago.

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A few hours from now, Clayton Kershaw will take the ball in Chicago, hoping to help the Dodgers move on to the World Series. Even though the Dodgers lost last night, being able to turn now to Kershaw makes everything better, as he still deserves the benefit of the doubt, any recent struggles aside. Now, I want to take only a couple minutes of your time. Kershaw has already started once in this series. He made Javier Baez make this face.

That’s Baez’s expression after striking out looking. Did you know that it’s possible for Javier Baez to strike out looking? Kershaw made it happen for just the ninth time in 2017. And while it’s possible Baez could’ve been thinking about any number of things — or about nothing at all — maybe he was simply caught off guard. Because Kershaw showed him a little two-strike twist.

Here are two screenshots. The lower one is from the pitch you just watched. The upper one is from the pitch immediately preceding it.

Facing Baez, with the count 2-and-2, Kershaw changed his arm slot. He didn’t go completely sidearm, but considering that Kershaw is usually very much over-the-top, what you’re seeing is a drop-down ambush. Kershaw showed it to Baez. In the same game, he went to it two other times. This is the Rich Hill inspiration. Every so often, Hill will drop down, himself, and Kershaw thought it was a neat trick. So he’s folded it in, from time to time.

I wrote about this in June. Kershaw introduced the drop-down slot late in 2016, and here’s a summary of how it worked at first. When Kershaw dropped down last year, he threw exclusively fastballs. This year he’s mixed in a few breaking balls. He threw one to David Peralta in the NLDS.

But here’s what I find most interesting. We knew last year Kershaw was trying this out. We knew earlier this year he’d brought it back. Then it…it just quietly went away. It’s only recently come back again. Here are all 29 of Kershaw’s 2017 appearances, showing the number of pitches in each game thrown from the alternate angle.

There was nothing, then there was a flurry. Over a streak of seven starts, Kershaw dropped down a total of 35 times. But with the 35th attempt, Kershaw allowed a home run to Jay Bruce. And then the experiment disappeared. Nothing, for eight games in a row. Then a one-off, followed by another three games of nothing. Then the playoffs began. Kershaw dropped down twice against the Diamondbacks, and he dropped down thrice in his first game against the Cubs. It’s back, just in the nick of time. Maybe that’s an exaggeration. Forget the second part. But, it’s back, anyway.

It’s still not clear if this is actually a successful tactic. When Kershaw drops down, he doesn’t become a strikeout machine. But this is Clayton Kershaw, and we’re in the playoffs, so I’d say this qualifies as automatically interesting. And it’s another thing for you to watch for tonight, as Kershaw tries to last as long as is possible. He’s already got his normal fastball, slider, and curve. He might throw in the odd second arm slot, just to keep the Cubs a little extra uncomfortable. It didn’t go so well in his last NLCS, but, this is a new playoffs, you know. Kershaw would like to forget about history.

The postseason game is changing around us. Starting pitchers are being asked to go harder for shorter periods of time, allowing teams to begin playing matchups with the bullpen as early as the third inning. And while strategically sound in most cases, this trend has emerged without a major change in how we think about rest and schedules in the postseason. As much as we might love the high-intensity matchups that “bullpenning” provides, is it possible that pitchers are having to endure greater stress than in the past?

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Of all the unlikely breakout stars of 2017, Chris Taylor is a candidate for the honor of unlikeliest.

The infielder/outfielder continues to be a force, homering and tripling in the Dodgers’ Game 3 NLCS victory on Tuesday night to push the Cubs to the brink of elimination.

Taylor entered the season as a wiry, inconspicuous, 6-foot-1, 200-pound, 26-year-old utility man. Over parts of three major-league seasons with the Mariners and Dodgers, he had produced a combined .234/.289/.309 slash line over 318 plate appearances before the 2017 campaign. He was traded by the Seattle to Los Angeles for Zach Lee on June 16 of last season. (Lee was released by the Padres back in August of this season.)

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Last night represented the sixth game of the Los Angeles Dodgers’ postseason run. Over the club’s first five playoff games, the left-handed trio of Andre Ethier, Joc Pederson, and Chase Utley recorded one start combined — specifically, Chase Utley’s in Game 3 of the National League Division Series against the Diamondbacks. That arrangement appeared to work: Roberts and company entered Tuesday with five consecutive wins. That’s what made the manager’s decision on Tuesday slightly unusual. Against Kyle Hendricks in Chicago, Roberts started all three players.

The gambit worked. All together, the trio went 3-for-10 with a double and home run. At one level, the decision was simple, logical. Because of the stage, however, it would have been easy for Roberts to go in a different direction. We often talk about how the postseason is different from the regular season, that it requires a different style of management. That’s no doubt true, particularly when it comes to the bullpen. There are instances, however, in which it’s also important to keep managing like the regular season. Roberts did that last night.

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The Cubs didn’t lose to the Dodgers last night because Carl Edwards Jr. walked Yu Darvish with the bases loaded. The Cubs aren’t on the verge of getting swept by the Dodgers in the NLCS because Carl Edwards Jr. walked Yu Darvish with the bases loaded. The Cubs are losing because their series OBP is .202, while the Dodgers are up at .360. They’re losing because their series SLG is .266, while the Dodgers are up at .484. They’re losing because their pitchers have 18 walks and 20 strikeouts, while the Dodgers’ pitchers have 4 and 32. The Dodgers have been, by far, the better team. It’s the simplest possible explanation.

The Cubs are losing because they’ve been worse. That’s not Edwards’ fault. And you never know when things could flip; in last year’s NLCS, the Cubs were blanked in back-to-back games. They’re still the reigning champs until they’re gone. But the Cubs are losing because they’ve been worse. Edwards’ walk of Darvish didn’t turn the series on its head. It’s more about the symbolism. It captures the story of how the series has gone. Have I mentioned that Darvish walked on four pitches? With the bases loaded and two out in a two-run game, Darvish took four balls in a row.

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A little later today, Jeff will have a post about the most amazing play we’ve seen all postseason: Yu Darvish drawing a bases-loaded walk — on four pitches — from Carl Edwards Jr. last night. How did a quality reliever throw four consecutive balls to a career AL pitcher who had zero intention of ever swinging? In the NLCS? For the defending champs?

But in this post, I’m going to ask a different question about that at-bat: why did we ever see it in the first place?

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We all know that John Lackey’s 1-0 sinker down and in to Justin Turner last night was deposited by the Dodgers third baseman into the outfield seats, resulting in a walk-off win for the home team in Game 2 of National League Championship Series. It’s possible, however, that the Cubs actually lost the game a moment before that — not when Turner’s fly ball cleared the outfield fence, but when Lackey and catcher Willson Contreras agreed on that particular pitch. Because, as good as Justin Turner was in 2016, he was better in 2017 and all the improvements he made in between helped prepare him for Lackey’s 1-0 offering.

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The Dodgers have had one of the weirdest seasons I’ve ever seen. Through August 25th, they were 91-36. And then, out of nowhere, they proceeded to lose 16 of 17, looking like one of the worst teams in baseball for almost three weeks. Their spot in the postseason was already secure, but their late-season collapse created an easy narrative that the Dodgers were headed for another playoff disappointment.

And when they drew the Diamondbacks — a club that had beaten them 11 of 19 times during the regular season, including six losses late in the year — in the first round, the narrative got even easier. The upstart team that wasn’t supposed to be here, the one that made the big left-field upgrade in July, would take down their division rival. The Dodgers might have been the better team in the first half of the year, but the Diamondbacks were ready to prove by way of their stronger finish that they were more equipped for October.

Well, so much for all that. Last night, the Dodgers completed a three-game sweep of the team that supposedly had their number. Once again, they look like the hottest team in baseball.

With these three victories, the Dodgers have now won nine of their last 10 — or 11 of their last 13, if that sounds more impressive to you. For the last two weeks, the Dodgers have again looked like the juggernaut that was in pursuit of the all-time win record at one point. And thanks to a few key changes, they look like a very scary NLCS or potential World Series opponent.

When the Dodgers acquired Yu Darvish at the deadline, there were some legitimate concerns about his season to that point. His strikeout rate was trending down, and in July, he posted his worst monthly totals of his career. After a dominant debut in Dodger blue and a decent follow-up, his next four starts were even worse than the end of his Rangers run.

Over the course of four starts from August 16th through September 8th, opposing batters hit .346/.414/.679 against Darvish. That’s a .450 wOBA allowed; Mike Trout’s career wOBA is .412, for reference. Darvish’s walks were up, his strikeouts were down, and his home-run rate was through the roof. He looked nothing like the second ace for which the Dodgers were hoping.

But as quickly as he turned into a batting-practice machine, Darvish has snapped out of his slump, and last night was the culmination of a four-start run that has basically been the exact opposite of the stretch that preceded it.

In his final three starts of the regular season, Darvish allowed just two runs in 19.1 innings pitched, running a nifty 21/1 K/BB ratio in the process. He didn’t allow a single home run in any of those three starts after allowing at least one in each of his five previous starts.

Darvish did finally give up another home run last night — to Daniel Descalso of all people — but he was otherwise completely dominant, striking out seven of 18 batters. Though his night ended with a scary hit-by-pitch, he pushed his K/BB ratio over his last four starts up to 28/1. Opposing batters have hit .132/.163/.181 against Darvish over that stretch.

This Darvish looks like the guy the Dodgers thought they were acquiring. And having another dominant starter like Darvish makes this the scariest rotation left.

One of the main reasons for their late-season losing streak was the inability to hold a lead, as nearly every pitcher tasked with getting the ball to Kenley Jansen failed. If you watched the Dodgers in September only, you’d think Dave Roberts would be forced again to use Kenley Jansen in the seventh inning throughout the playoffs, lacking trust in any of his middle relievers to bridge the gap after the starters were pulled.

This group, though, not only looks like they can be trusted; they actually look like a strength.

The big addition for October was Kenta Maeda’s move to the bullpen, since the team decided they’d be better off with him there than potentially just starting Game 4. And he couldn’t have looked better in the NLDS. In two outings, he faced six batters, retiring them on four strikeouts and two ground outs. A guy who averaged 91.5 mph with his fastball as a starter sat at 94 and topped out at 96 in his inning of relief, and his swing-and-miss slider rolled through the heart of the Diamondbacks order in his first outing.

This entire postseason, we’ve seen what good starters can do in shorter relief outings, and adding Maeda as a hard-throwing strikeout guy gives the team a quality bullpen option it didn’t have in the regular season. And paired with Brandon Morrow’s 100 mph fastball and an apparently fixed Tony Cingrani, the Dodgers now have three reliable middle relievers to get the ball to Jansen.

For all the talk of the dominance of the Yankee relievers this week, it’s actually LA’s relievers who’ve posted the lowest OPS allowed of any relief corps in the postseason so far, having held the Diamondbacks to just a .507 OPS in their 11.2 innings of work.

Pedro Baez might be on the roster, but the NLDS made it clear how Roberts is going to manage his bullpen when he has a lead. And with Morrow, Cingrani, Maeda, and Jansen, the Dodgers look like they have enough bullpen arms to keep it from being just the Kershaw and Jansen show again.

The Dodgers won their division series last year, too, but to do it, they required 101 pitches from Clayton Kershaw in Game 1, 110 pitches on three days’ rest in Game 4, and then a memorable bullpen appearance in Game 5. Jansen’s totals are almost as absurd; he went 27 pitches in Game 1, 16 in Game 3, 13 in Game 4, and then 51 more pitches in Game 5, on his third consecutive day of work.

By the time the NLCS started, the Dodgers were running on fumes. They just couldn’t match a deeper Cubs team that had finished off the Giants in four games and got to rest before the showdown for the pennant. While no one can say definitively why Kershaw got lit up in the series clinching defeat in Game 6, it was unreasonable to expect Kershaw and Jansen to carry the team by themselves indefinitely. And if Kershaw just ran out of gas after handling a ridiculous workload, who could blame him?

That won’t be an issue this year. The first-round sweep means the Dodgers will get four days off before they play again, and Kershaw will have gone eight days between his Game 1 starts in the NLDS and NLCS. Jansen did pitch in all three games against Arizona, but he threw just 16, 18, and 16 pitches in those outings, and now he’ll get a nice break before being asked to take the mound again.

Alex Wood, Ross Stripling, and Pedro Baez didn’t even appear in the LDS, while Josh Fields faced two batters and threw all of eight pitches, so if the Dodgers run into a scenario where they have an early deficit in an NLCS game and just need to eat some innings while saving their best arms, they’ll have plenty of well-rested pitchers from which to choose.

For once, fatigue shouldn’t be an issue for the Dodgers in the NLCS. If either the Cubs or Nationals are going to get through them to advance to the World Series, they’re going to have to beat a fresh, rested group that is again firing on all cylinders.

As this weird season has shown, things can turn in a moment’s notice, and we should never assume that what just happened will continue going forward. But the idea that a big September slump showed that LA was going to be an easy elimination once the playoffs began? The Dodgers just put that idea in the ground, and once again, they look like the team to beat in the National League.

Before his first start with the Dodgers, just after his trade from the Rangers, Yu Darvish sat down with general manager Farhan Zaidi for a conversation about that night’s game. Andy McCullough relayed some of the details:

At the team hotel in Manhattan, Darvish met with general manager Farhan Zaidi, who advised him on how to attack that night’s hitters. Zaidi opened a laptop and revealed how Darvish could optimize his arsenal, altering the locations and pitch sequences he utilized during five seasons with Texas.

What a fascinating moment! Where so many teams might have shied away from tinkering with a newly acquired, fully formed star, the Dodgers jumped right in with suggestions, and the player was all ears. The team came with so many adjustments in hand that, today, in a press conference, the starting pitcher joked that the only thing they didn’t ask him to change was his “beautiful face.”

So, what were those changes?

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