BOSTON -- For all of the talk about "bullpenning," and a team's relievers absorbing the majority of innings during the postseason, the clubs in the World Series have a more traditional look, hearkening back to the days when starters pitched a lot of innings, and relievers did not.
But this isn't some kind of nostalgic look back to the good old days of five years ago, when it was generally assumed that overtaxing a bullpen throughout the course of a regular season and into the playoffs would eventually take a toll sometime after the halfway point in October.
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Instead, it would be prudent to peer into the plights of a handful of starting pitchers who have helped to push the phrase "bullpenning" to the side, briefly. The World Series is hardly lacking big names who have had success on the biggest stages, but now the question is: How likely are they to still be standing on that mound when the sixth or seventh inning rolls around?
The names David Price, Clayton Kershaw and Chris Sale normally define pitchers who can be counted on to go deep into games. But their results, in recent history, have been mixed. And that may force their managers to make difficult, and early, decisions.
The talent level is unquestioned, and they've had longer outings this postseason -- at times. But they've also had their moments this month that remind us why calling on the relievers early in games continues to be a thing.
"Starting pitching, to me, is still the key," Price said. "I understand starters are on very short leashes and this and that. But I feel like teams really are going to go as far as their starters will allow them to go, especially in a seven-game series."

Price, who will start Game 2 for the Red Sox on Wednesday, has every reason to be brimming with confidence. In the Game 5 clincher against the Astros in the American League Championship Series, the lefty found a feel for a changeup that most Houston hitters labeled as unhittable. He enters the World Series as a possible double weapon for the Red Sox. He could build on that six-inning, nine-strikeout performance against the Astros, while also allowing manager Alex Cora to pace his bullpen for a possible seven-game showdown with the Dodgers.
"Knowing in the back of your mind that if you give up a couple of runs early, your day could be over ... it might lock you in just a little bit more knowing that you have to be just a little bit better to get to that point that you expect to get to," Price said. "I think you can take it out there, go pitch by pitch, continue to move forward and deal what whatever happens out on that field. Just stay ready."
On the Dodgers' side, for all that Kershaw has accomplished -- if he retired tomorrow, he'd be a first-ballot Hall of Famer -- it seems odd to talk about the left-hander somehow heading into his World Series Game 1 start needing to redeem himself in the postseason. But his postseason results have been mixed.

Kershaw had a terrific outing in Game 2 of the National League Division Series against the Braves, throwing eight shutout innings with three strikeouts, but in Game 1 of the NLCS against the Brewers, he allowed five runs (four earned) over three innings. He bounced back in Game 5, holding Milwaukee to one run over seven frames.
In the regular season, Kershaw has a career ERA of 2.39. In the postseason, his ERA is 4.09, with a 4.02 mark in the World Series. Some of that is due to him having to go longer than he probably should have in past postseasons, due to, yes, a taxed bullpen. But fairly or not, until Kershaw has that dominant, Series-clinching outing, skepticism about his postseason body of work will continue.
After Dodgers manager Dave Roberts rattled off the first three starters who will comprise his World Series rotation -- Kershaw, Hyun-Jin Ryu and Walker Buehler -- he acknowledged the importance of being able to count pitchers who don't require a lot of strategizing ahead of time.
"I think that's a lot more comforting than to kind of premeditated get six to nine outs and then try to patch things together, especially when you're talking about a seven-game series, the last series of the year, where guys have been used and workloads and things like that," Roberts said.

Sale, Boston's Game 1 starter, would appear to serve that role for the Red Sox. He doesn't have as much postseason baggage as Price and Kershaw -- this postseason is only his second -- but he's produced a mixed bag of results. In the ALDS against the Yankees, Sale pitched well, allowing two runs over 5 1/3 innings. His second outing in the ALCS vs. the Astros didn't go so well. He lasted four innings, allowed two runs and later came down with a stomach ailment that landed him in the hospital.
Whether that bug was already in his system when he was pitching against the Astros is unclear, but Sale, who allowed nine earned runs over two ALDS outings last year against Houston in his only other postseason, is ready to put in a good old-fashioned long outing when he takes the mound for the World Series opener.
That's "opener" in a more traditional sense.
"As a starting pitcher your job is to ... answer the phone when it calls and go out there as long as you can," Sale said. "That's been our mindset since Day 1, and it doesn't change when we get to the postseason."