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Dodgers To Face Brewers Bullpen Without Ace Devin Williams

Dodgers To Face Brewers Bullpen Without Ace Devin Williams

It's baseball night in America, the Dodgers play the Brewers in Game 1 of the National League Wild Card series, and sometimes life isn't fair.

Milwaukee's right-hander and bullpen ace, Devin Williams has been left off the team's first-round roster while he deals with shoulder soreness and it's really not fair to the state of Wisconsin. But it's also not fair that Los Angeles, the team with a sport's best 43-17 record has to play a two-out-of-three series where the better team can lose in a flash opposite a 29-31 club that really shouldn't be in the playoff.

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The Brewers are also without starters Corbin Burnes (oblique) and ex-Dodger Brett Anderson (blister). And L.A. was without Justin Turner for a quarter of the season. David Price for the entire season and Joe Kelly for almost half of it. Will Smith missed time, as did Joc Pederson, Edwin Rios, Dustin May, Pedro Baez and Clayton Kershaw. Caleb Ferguson hasn't pitched since September 15 and may not again until September 15 of 2021. But L.A. thrived anyway, because you simply have to play the cards with which you've been dealt.

The right-handed Williams has been nothing short of a bullpen god this year, putting up a 0.33 ERA, a 0.86 FIP, a 0.630 WHIP with otherwordly 17.7 strikeouts per nine innings pitched.

Injuries happen, it's unfortunate and the baseball industry wishes Milwaukee well to the extent possible.

And remember, glove conquers all.

Howard Cole has been writing about baseball on the internet since Y2K. Follow him on Twitter.

Video courtesy of Spectrum SportsNetLA/Los Angeles Dodgers.