The Los Angeles Dodgers head into the final day of the 2018 regular season in position to potentially win the National League West by way of multiple scenarios. And with that, the club has elected to start Rich Hill, not Walker Buehler in the Sunday’s finale.
Hill was initially pushed back in the starting rotation to avoid facing the Arizona Diamondbacks last week. That left him lined up to take the ball in the series opener against the San Francisco Giants, but he was then strategically skipped over.
At the time, the decision was seemingly to have Hill as a safety valve if the Dodgers were to play a Game 163 to decide the NL West, or a multitude of Wild Card Game scenarios.