Sasaki, Kershaw boost bullpen

Both starters pitch scoreless innings to help Dodgers defeat Arizona Wednesday.

- BY JACK HARRIS

Ross D. FRANKLIN Associated Press PITCHER Roki Sasaki was activated from the injured list shortly before the game against the Diamondbacks.

If the Dodgers are going to win 13 games in October, they will likely have to master the playbook they ran Wednesday night.

Starting pitchers came out of the bullpen. Another late-inning collapse didn't cripple their psyche. The offense delivered timely hits when it needed to. And the team grinded out a 5-4 extrainnings win over the Arizona Diamondbacks.

The story of the night, in an unexpected but entirely warranted late-season plot twist, was Roki Sasaki and Clayton Kershaw throwing scoreless innings of relief for a beleaguered Dodgers bullpen.

The theme, however, was improvisation with the roster and resiliency in the dugout.

"I know the word resilience gets thrown out a lot, but it was a resilient win and a resilient group," manager Dave Roberts said. "We fought our tails off until the end. It didn't look good at different points of the game. But Arizona fought as well. So it was a heck of a ball game ... Really good stuff."

The game wasn't settled until the 11th inning, when Tommy Edman gave the Dodgers a lead with an RBI single and Justin Wrobleski closed out a rare stress-free save.

It never would've gotten there, however, without the contributions Sasaki and Kershaw provided out of the bullpen earlier in the evening.

After all the struggles from the Dodgers' traditional relievers lately, it was the two starting pitchers who helped save the day.