Jack Flaherty will be the starting pitcher for the Los Angeles Dodgers in the World Series opener against the New York Yankees and Gerrit Cole on Friday night at Dodger Stadium, in a matchup featuring local players.
Flaherty is from Burbank and went to high school at Harvard-Westlake in Los Angeles. Cole hails from Tustin in Orange County and played at UCLA.
“There’s no bigger stage than this and it’s what we all wanted as kids and the position we wanted to be in,” Flaherty said Tuesday during a Zoom news conference. “It’s just going to be an incredible matchup.”
Flaherty will have the support of his mother, Eileen, who adopted him shortly after he was born, along with other family and friends.
“They always remind me at the end of the day that it’s never as big of a situation as everybody else is going to make it seem,” the 29-year-old right-hander said.
Right-hander Yoshinobu Yamamoto, the $325 million rookie, will pitch in Game 2 on Saturday, according to Dodgers manager Dave Roberts. The team also plans to have a bullpen game during the best-of-seven series.
The Yankees tried to trade for Flaherty from the Detroit Tigers before the July trade deadline, but they could not agree on prospects. Instead, he joined his hometown team and will play in the stadium where he attended games as a Little League player.
After the trade deadline, Yankees general manager Brian Cashman did not directly respond to a report from The Athletic about the Yankees backing out of a trade due to medical issues.
“There’s more to all that with the deadline that I’ve just kind of held onto,” Flaherty said. “Things turned out the way that they did and we’re here, we’re with LA. I’m happy for the situation that I’m in.”
Flaherty has made three starts in the playoffs, with a 7.04 ERA. He was strong in Game 1 of the NL Championship Series against the New York Mets, allowing only two hits over seven innings.
However, he struggled in Game 5 of the NLCS, giving up eight earned runs and four walks in three innings while experiencing drops in his velocity and spin rate. After that game, Roberts mentioned that the pitcher had been feeling unwell.
“That’s a lesson to be learned,” Roberts said. “That’s another experienced moment for him that I think can kind of help him in this series. We weathered it. I think he’s healthy now and he’ll spit out a good one on Friday.”
Flaherty watched that game again and felt everything happened too quickly for him.
“I was multiple times one pitch away from getting out of it, where it’s still either 3-1 or 5-1 instead of it getting to 8-1,” he said. “It was right there and if we can control a couple more things then be in a little bit of a better spot.”
Three years ago, Flaherty was at the ballpark in Houston to see his high school teammate Max Fried win the World Series for Atlanta. Now Flaherty will be pitching in a World Series opener.
“It’s an opportunity to go out and set the tone and make some adjustments after the last game that I had,” he said, “and be able to set us up for kind of the rest of the series.”
