The Brewers and Dodgers kick off the National League Championship Series in less than an hour. Each team made one change to their respective Division Series rosters.
Milwaukee made a move in the bullpen and made a change Nick Mears for Tobias Myers. General manager Matt Arnold told reporters that the decision was mainly about adding length to the pitching staff (link via Adam McCalvy of MLB.com). Mears has completed two innings in a game just once this season. All but five of his 63 appearances were one inning or less. Myers was a starter for much of his career, working a handful of 2-3 innings stints in long relief along the way. The Brewers will rely heavily on their relievers, especially in games that haven’t started yet Freddy Peraltaand have Aaron Ashby tonight kicks off a bullpen game.
Still, it comes as a moderate surprise that the hard-throwing Mears is being removed from the roster entirely. Only during the season Trevor Megil came into play on average in higher leverage positions for skipper Pat Murphy. Mears was third on the team with 16 holds. He also had pitched three times in the five-game Division Series win over the Cubs, throwing 1 2/3 scoreless frames while striking out three of seven batters. Mears missed a few weeks in September with back problems, but Arnold suggested the decision was less a health issue and more about the need for multi-inning arms in a seven-match set.
The Dodgers also made a change, adding a 12th pure pitcher after 11 pitchers (excluding Shohei Ohtani) and 15 position players for their series against the Phillies. Right-handed Ben Casparius moves in as the team retires the third catcher Dalton hurry. That is mainly a positive sign Will Smith. The Dodgers were concerned that Smith would be caught early in the Philly series. The star backstop came off the bench as a pinch-hitter for the first two games as he played through a broken finger.
Smith took full swing in the last two games and apparently showed enough that the Dodgers no longer feel like they have to keep Rushing active behind Smith and Leg rotted. The 24-year-old Rushing struckout a pinch-hit at bat in his only appearance during the Division Series. Casparius adds a mop-up option to the bullpen after pitching to a 4.64 earned run average over 77 2/3 innings during the regular season. He pitched very well the first two months, but posted a 6.31 ERA in 27 appearances after June 1.
The full rosters are broken down as follows:
Brewers
Catchers: William Contreras, Danny Jansen
Infielders: Jake Bauer, Caleb Durbin, Andruw Monasterio, Joey Ortiz, Brice Take, Andreas Vaughn
Outfielders: Jackson Chourio, Isaac Collins, Sal Frelick, Brandon Lockridge, Blake Perkins, Christian Jelich
Right-handers: Grant Anderson, Trevor Megil, Jacob Misiorowski, Tobias Myers, Chad Patrick, Freddy Peralta (Game 2 starter), Quinn Priester, Abner Uribe
Left-handers: Aaron Ashby (Game 1 opener), Robert Gasser, Jared Koenig, Jose Quintana
Evaders
Catchers: Leg rotted, Will Smith
Infielders: Mookie Betts, Tommy Edman, Freddie Vrijman, Hyeseong Kim, Max Muncy, Miguel Rojas
Outfielders: Alex Bell, Justin Dean, Kike Hernández, Teoscar Hernández, Andy Pages
Two-way player: Shohei Ohtani
Right-handers: Ben Casparius, Tyler Glasnow, Roki Sasaki, Emmet Sheehan, Blake Treinen, Yoshinobu Yamamoto (Game 2 starter)
Left-handers: Anthony Banda, Jack Dreyer, Clayton Kershaw, Blake Snell (Game 1 starter), Alex shutters, Justin Wrobleski
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