I was on the radio with Jarrod Thomas again today and the early topic was baseball. One of the aspects we discussed was when Manager Dave Roberts should pitch Clayton Kershaw. There was speculation Kershaw could be moved up to pitch tonight in game 5, and the betting lines fluctuated based on what people thought would happen.
JT and I thought the optimal strategy was to pitch Kershaw in Game 6. He had a back injury this year, and better to pitch him to close out if you are up 3 games to 2, or keep alive if down 2 games to 3. As I write this the Cubs are up 8 to 1 with 6 outs left to get. The young me would look to Lee Smith to lose this one, but I have hope for tonight. We shall see.
Anyway, Roberts went with the choice we thought was best. He has to look at the rest of his pitchers and say the collection of you have to give me one win, because I expect that is what I will get from Clayton. We will see how this all plays out over the next few days, but it good to know that game theory can still inform baseball decisions.
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