With Martín Pérez and Bryce Elder not on the National League Division Series roster, starting pitching is a huge question mark for the Braves.
After throwing a bullpen game in which Dylan Dodd, AJ Smith-Shawver and Brent Suter all went multiple innings in Game 1, the Braves had a choice to make for Game 2. They had the option to pitch Chris Sale four days removed from his previous start and just two days removed from his heroic relief outing on Thursday, or they could gamble and hand the game to their bullpen again.
Going back to Atlanta down 0-2 would have been brutal for the Braves, even if they had Sale lined up, so a third straight bullpen game, dating back to the series finale against the Philadelphia Phillies, was a huge risk. However, it's a risk that paid off. The Braves bullpen came through, behind a brilliant effort from Ryan Kerr as the opener, and stole a game in Los Angeles.
Starting Sale in Game 2 would have set him up to start a potential Game 5, but Walt Weiss explained the team's thinking.
"If you have Sale in Game 2 and Game 5, as people were screaming about," Weiss said, per USA Today's Bob Nightengale, "we saw it as you're getting a diminished Chris Sale twice at that point. We wanted to get a full-strength Chris Sale, and that's Game 3. Then, possibly impacting the game in Game 5 like we saw in the Phillies series.
"That's what it came down to. We didn't want to have a somewhat diminished Chris Sale twice because it would have been regular rest, but he had the (relief) outing in between, and it just didn't make sense to us."
Sale had pitched on four days' rest just twice in the regular season. The Braves felt that rushing him, especially after a relief outing in a win-or-go-home game a couple days earlier, was not going to result in them getting the best version of Sale.
Weiss took a risk, and now his Braves are set up great at home. They have their ace lined up against Yoshinobu Yamamoto, who carried the Dodgers in the postseason last year. After that, they will have Tyler Mahle, who was brilliant in his start against the Phillies.
Should the series go to Game 5, the Braves would once again likely throw a bullpen game, but this time they would have Sale, on two days' rest after his Game 3 start.