Until 9:00 pm (PT) on Monday night, the Dodgers starter for game-1 of Tuesday’s doubleheader against the Colorado Rockies was a mystery – a secret even. It was as if Dodgers manager Don Mattingly was getting personal satisfaction out of toying with the media the way a cat toys with a mouse.

The anticipation was high, even at a fever pitch that the Dodgers were finally… finally going to call up former first-round draft pick Zach Lee from Triple-A Oklahoma City, where he has been nothing short of brilliant through his first 10 starts with a team-leading five wins and 44 strikeouts and an outstanding 2.38 ERA.

But alas, Mattingly shot down that anticipation when, prior to Monday night’s 11-4 shellacking of the Rockies, he told reporters that it would not be Zach Lee making the game-1 start – sort of.

“We won’t start somebody that’s never started a major league game before tomorrow,” Mattingly said.

This led the media – and just about everyone else – to believe that left-hander David Huff would get the game-1 start. Huff had been called up from Triple-A Oklahoma earlier in the day as the MLB-authorized 26th man for a doubleheader. Huff had made a spot start for the Dodgers earlier in the season for Hyun-jin Ryu in which he allowed four runs on seven hits with a walk and two strikeouts in four innings of work. But it was the two home runs that he allowed that ultimately sent him packing back to OKC – this in spite of the Dodgers eventual 6-5 wins over the Seattle Mariners on Howie Kendrick’s exciting walk-off two-RBI single in the bottom of the ninth.

Howie Kendrick’s game-winning broken bat single on April 14 gave the Dodgers their second walk-off win in as many games. (Photo credit – Ron Cervenka)

But the mystery continued when Huff was brought in to relieve Clayton Kershaw in the top of the eighth inning on Monday night, thus removing him from the equation. Huff promptly gave up singles to four of the first five batters he faced turning an 11-2 laugher into an 11-4 less of a laugher. The idea, of course, was to have Huff pitch the eighth and ninth innings to save the Dodgers bullpen for Tuesday twin bill. Needless to say, the plan failed and left-hander J.P. Howell was forced to pitch the ninth, in which he retired that Rockies in order on 14 pitches.

Even after the game Mattingly would not come right out and announce his game-1 starter but finally did so about a half hour later. His game-1 starter would be none other than former Rockies starter and current Dodgers reliever Juan Nicasio.

Of course it would be Nicasio. How did we miss this one?

Even though the 28-year-old San Francisco de Macoris, Dominican Republic native hasn’t started a game since June 15, 2014, the hard-throwing right-hander is 13-9 in games that he started at hitter-friendly Coors Field.

Juan Nicasio has been absolutely outstanding out of the Dodgers bullpen this season. He is also 13-9 as a starter at Coors Field. (Photo credit – Harry How)

Although Dodgers President of Baseball Operations Andrew Friedman or general manager Farhan Zaidi haven’t said (nor will they) that they went with Nicasio over Lee because they don’t want to start Lee’s service time clock, there is little doubt that this is exactly (no pun intended) why they haven’t called Zach Lee up to this point. Doing so would make the 23-year-old Plano, Texas native a Super Two arbitration candidate, thus giving the Dodgers one less year of control over the former first rounder.

Fortunately for the Dodgers, Nicasio has been outstanding out of the bullpen with a 1-1 record and a minuscule 1.29 ERA. He has walked 11 and struck out 28 in his 21.0 innings in relief thus far this season. His longest outing in the 16 games in which he has appeared was three innings on May 2 against the Arizona Diamondbacks at Dodger Stadium. In that outing he retired all nine batters he faced in order with two strikeouts.

Ideally, Mattingly would like to get at least five innings out of Nicasio and then hand the ball to left-hander Ian Thomas, who Mattingly said will join the team on Tuesday from Oklahoma City. Thomas, as you may recall, was acquired by the Dodgers last week in the trade that sent Juan Uribe to the Atlanta Braves for veteran infielder Alberto Callaspo. Shortly after that trade, Friedman told reporters that it was their intention to stretch Thomas out and eventually make him a starter.

Since being acquired by the Dodgers, Thomas has made only one relief appearance with the OKC Dodgers in which he collected the win but allowed six runs on eight hits – including two home runs – in his 2.1 innings of work. However, prior to joining the Dodgers, Thomas did not allow a run in 15.2 innings when he split time between Double-A Mississippi and Triple-A Gwinnett in the Braves organization, where he started nine games.

If it were anywhere other than Coors Field, Mattingly’s plan to use only Nicasio and Thomas might work, but given the history of the mile-high ballpark and the fact that game-1 has a 12:10 pm (PT) start time, it’s inconceivable that the Dodgers will be able to get by on only two pitchers. Now game-2 is another story, in which Zack Greinke gets the start for the Dodgers.

Regardless, Tuesday should prove to be interesting when the Dodgers and Rockies live out the immortal words of the great Ernie Banks.

“Let’s play two!”