MLB's playoffs wreck even the best-laid pitching plans. The Orioles are ready to improvise.

BALTIMORE – As the eight remaining participants in baseball’s playoffs take the field in the Division Series round beginning Saturday, their best-laid pitching plans are as bright and orderly as the chalk lines painting the infields.

For the next five weeks, they’ll be turned into fingerpaintings a toddler could have concocted.

With a five-game Division Series and best-of-seven League Championship and World Series to follow, even the heartiest and deepest staffs in a typical year look nothing like the groups that began this journey.

And this year, even the greatest clubs going in are going to rely often on baseball’s new best friend – “TBA” – to get through this month.

The 100-win Los Angeles Dodgers? With Clayton Kershaw uncertain to pitch beyond five innings and once a week, backed by a pair of rookie starters navigating their first Octobers, the Dodgers’ strategy will be volatile, even by manager Dave Roberts’ quick-hook postseason standard.

The 104-win Atlanta Braves? After 281-strikeout man Spencer Strider, lefty Max Fried is coming off a fingernail issue, No. 3 starter Charlie Morton is out until at least the NLCS with a finger injury and the club with the best record may well be leaning on tag teams for Game 3s of every series.

The 90-win kings of the Lone Star State? The Texas Rangers are down Jacob deGrom, Max Scherzer and Jon Gray, while the Houston Astros, after Justin Verlander and Framber Valdez, hold their breath now during Cristian Javier’s outings (4.56 ERA) and hope rookies JP France and Hunter Brown are up for the task.

It’s the new reality in this starter-bereft baseball landscape, exacerbated for many reasons – a rash of Tommy John surgeries, a pandemic that scotched an entire minor-league season – in 2023.

“More times than not, you’re not winning off your starter going seven shutout innings,” says Braves right-hander Kyle Wright, who played a key relief role in their 2021 World Series title and will likely team up with Bryce Elder to take down Game 3 of the NLDS.

“You hope it goes that way, but it doesn’t really happen.”

With that in mind, the team best prepared for these playoffs might be the one with few recognizable names on the bump.

'These guys can pitch'

As the Baltimore Orioles climbed out of their five-year rebuild and turned into a 101-win juggernaut, their fans were agitated the past two offseasons when GM Mike Elias spent a relative pittance on starting pitching – $7 million for Jordan Lyles in 2022, $10 million for Kyle Gibson this year.

Yet they had an almost ideal outcome in 2023. Young right-hander Tyler Wells pitched like an All-Star in the first half. Top prospect Grayson Rodriguez dominated (2.58 ERA in 13 starts) after a midseason trip to the minors.

And Kyle Bradish took a massive step forward, posting a 2.58 ERA in 30 starts and striking out one batter for every one of his career-high 168 ⅔ innings, earning his way into a Game 1 start Saturday against the Texas Rangers in the ALDS.

Yet what might have been an impediment – managing young starters’ innings limits and ensuring safe recoveries from Tommy John surgeries – could unknowingly create the biggest upside for Baltimore’s staff in the playoffs.

When Wells – whose right elbow was reconstructed in 2019 and didn’t pitch in the pandemic season of 2020 – hit a midseason wall, he was dispatched to the minor leagues to keep his innings down.

He has returned as a deluxe reliever capable of closing out the ninth inning or pitching multiple high-leverage innings.

When John Means returned from April 2022 Tommy John surgery in September, there were few restrictions and none of the erratic hiccups that sometimes accompany a pitcher coming off the procedure.

And when young starter DL Hall spent most of the season reestablishing his velocity and training for relief work at various minor league levels, he returned as a vicious left-handed weapon out of the bullpen.

“These guys can pitch,” says Elias. “What I would say about Hall, Wells and John Means is that’s three fresh arms when we could really use it. These guys had lengthy breaks for one reason or another.

“And these guys look really sharp at a time other guys are huffing and puffing.”

The X factor

Perhaps the beauty of the Orioles’ predicament is that they have been in improv mode for the better part of three months. Adjusting on the fly in the playoffs may not feel like such a big deal should it happen.

And while the loss of All-Star closer Felix Bautista will hurt, the recent reinforcements and the truncated pitching staffs of the postseason could more than make up for it, as starters with 95-mph stuff – such as Dean Kremer or veteran Jack Flaherty – are added to the bullpen mix.

“We’re going to benefit really well, with a lot of guys in the bullpen who can throw multiple innings,” says Gibson, who figures to be the club’s third or fourth starter this postseason. “We can move starters to the bullpen. I think our pitching staff is in a good spot.

“Obviously, we would love to have Felix. But our pitching staff in general is in about as good a spot as we can be in.”

The X factor may be Wells, 29, who posted a 3.18 ERA and eight quality starts in the first half. But Wells had never pitched more than 119 innings in a professional season and as the second half began, it showed.

So Wells swallowed his pride and, weeks after he nearly made the All-Star team, headed to the minor leagues as the Orioles raged toward the AL East title. He returned a reliever, just in time to serve as closer in their final two games to clinch the division title.

"When I went down there on a rehab assignment about a month ago," says lefty reliever Danny Coulombe, "I told him, ‘Hey, you are going to play a huge role on this team. I know it doesn’t feel like that right now, because you’re in Triple-A, but honestly, man, you’re really important. One, you have closer experience and two, you were almost an All-Star in the first half.’

"I’m really excited to see how he does. We trust him. We trust all the guys on our staff."

As Wells built back from Tommy John surgery, he served as their closer at times in 2021. Now, his total body of work – and an odometer sitting at 118 ⅔ innings pitched, one shy of his career high – could make him the ultimate playoff weapon.

“If you have to go through your whole bullpen in Game 1 and need a guy who can come in and close for two or three innings, he can be your guy,” says Gibson. “How many teams outside of a starter being moved into that spot, who’s never done back end, how many teams have a guy that can do what Tyler Wells does?

“The answer might be zero.”

Wells, drafted by the Minnesota Twins in 2016 and plucked by the Orioles in the Rule 5 draft as he recovered from Tommy John, has seen the game evolve with greater emphasis on velocity. He sees a point in time where pitchers like Rodriguez and Bradish will be the model – maintaining their brilliance over several innings and dozens of starts while still hitting the mid- to upper 90s with their fastballs.

“I can’t say it’s a shortage as much as, it’s baseball,” he says. “Sometimes a weakness in an organization is injuries. Not to say the Dodgers are injury-ridden, but they’ve had a few unfortunate circumstances with starting pitchers this year. It kind of depends.

“My time in the minor leagues really showed me the evolution of guys going to more stuff. A lot of guys I saw didn’t seem to go deep into games. Starting pitching is almost an art – it’s a really good and difficult balance of stuff along with being able to locate and throw strikes and as we go on, you’re going to start to see a lot of those guys come back.

“These guys down in the minor leagues, you’re going to start to see stuff with location. I think Bradish is a really good example of a stuff guy who’s located really well, not walking a lot of guys.”

'We play a lot of close games'

This October, though, there just aren’t enough of those reliable guys to fill eight playoff rotations – especially given the tattered state of some of them by the time the Fall Classic rolls around.

Given their starting staffs that solidly roll four to five deep, it’s tempting to install the Philadelphia Phillies and Minnesota Twins as Series favorites. Perhaps that will come to pass.

More likely, it’s the time that can adjust on the fly and advance by any means necessary.

“We’re going to go as far as we pitch,” says Orioles manager Brandon Hyde. “We play a lot of close games.

“I wish we could win 8-1 sometime.”

Failing that, best to etch your finest plans in pencil - and for the proverbial next man up to stay ready.

"Now, getting the opportunity to be here is surreal," Wells said Friday. "There’s really no words to kind of put it into context. At the same time, too, I want to take my moment and really enjoy it.

"But when it’s time to go, it’s time to go."

This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: MLB playoff pitching matchups go out the window in October