Baseball Hall of Famer John Smoltz said Friday he thinks the New York Yankees have one big advantage over the Los Angeles Dodgers in the World Series.
The eight-time All-Star talked about the Yankees’ advantage when he joined OutKick’s “Don’t @ Me With Dan Dakch.”
“I think the Yankees have an advantage in the starting rotation. They have four starters. We haven’t seen four starters all year. At least I haven’t in the series that I’ve had, we’ve had bullpen games for the Dodgers. They are going to have bullpen games again, but the Yankees can throw out four starters,” Smoltz said.
“Which if (the Yankees starters) do their job and have a nice little streak going. I read something in the stats, and I had to do a double take, because it seems so simple. But the Yankees have seven consecutive games of four innings and two runs or less given up.
“Now, four innings is not a lot, but that just tells you where we are in the state of the game for what is being valued and what the commodities that certain teams have or don’t have.”
The Yankees’ four starters that they used this postseason are Gerrit Cole, Carlos Rodón, Clarke Schmidt and Luis Gil.
Cole is starting Game 1, while manager Aaron Boone has announced that Rodón and Schmidt will start Games 2 and 3.
Because the Yankees beat the Cleveland Guardians in five games in the ALCS, it gave them a chance to set their rotation how they wanted. Had they lost Game 5 in Cleveland, Cole would have started Game 6 and not been able to start until Game 3 or 4 in the World Series.
“I think this is going to be a tighter-played World Series and Dave Roberts is going to have really hard decisions to make. Let’s just say in the fifth inning, down one, you know, or even down two, he’s got a spread in his mind that if he is three down or more, he is not going to probably use those guys to stay in the game,” Smoltz said.
“He’ll hope he can stay in the game with other relievers, but he has to keep his five or four top relievers in a position for the knockout punch. So that’s where the starters for the Yankees can really put a tough narrative for Dave Roberts.”
Cole comes into his Game 1 start with a 1-0 record in his three postseason starts, with a 3.31 ERA across 16.1 innings.
Flaherty is starting Game 1 for the Dodgers and has been more of a mixed bag, going 1-2 in three games with a 7.04 ERA across 15.1 innings. In Game 1 of the NLCS, Flaherty threw seven shutout innings against the Mets, but he got rocked in Game 5, giving up eight runs in three innings.
Roberts announced Yamamoto will start Game 2 for the Dodgers, but no decision has been made on whether Game 3 will be a Buehler start or a bullpen game.
The World Series will officially begin with Flaherty throwing the first pitch at Dodgers Stadium on Friday at 8:08 p.m ET on FOX.
Follow Fox News Digital’s sports coverage on X, and subscribe to the Fox News Sports Huddle newsletter.
The post MLB great details where Yankees have advantage over Dodgers in World Series appeared first on Fox News.
