The Dodgers have changed their rotation for the National League Division Series against the San Diego Padres, moving Yoshinobu Yamamoto to Game 1 on Saturday night at Chavez Ravine and Jack Flaherty to Game 2 on Sunday night.

Flaherty, the right-hander acquired from the Detroit Tigers at the trade deadline, was originally scheduled to start in the opener of the best-of-five series. By moving Yamamoto from Game 2 to Game 1, the Japanese right-hander would be available to start a potential Game 5 on October 11 on five days’ rest.

“It’s much more about if there’s a Game 5,” Andrew Friedman, the team’s president of baseball operations, said during Thursday’s practice. “Yoshi did not throw on a regular basis (four days rest). Jack is more used to it. Depending on our bullpen usage throughout the series, it gives us that flexibility in Game 5, if there is one.”

Yamamoto, who signed a 12-year, $325 million deal in December, went 7-2 with a 3.00 ERA in 18 starts this season, missing nearly three months from mid-June to mid-September with a sprained spinal cord. rotator cuff. The Dodgers kept him on a once-a-week schedule that resembled his workload in Japan.

In addition to freeing up Yamamoto for a potential Game 5 start, the rotation switch will also allow Flaherty, who went 6-2 with a 3.58 ERA in 10 starts for the Dodgers, to be available for a Game 5 on regular rest.

Yamamoto gave up eight earned runs and eight hits in six innings of his two starts against the Padres this season, a 15-11 loss in South Korea on March 21 and an 8-7 loss in Los Angeles on April 12.

“It just creates more options,” Friedman said. “If there’s a Game 5, depending on how we use our bullpen, we could have (Yamamoto and Flaherty) shut it down. We can only have one with our pen. It creates flexibility for things we can’t possibly know right now, and that’s how our pitching is used in Games 1 through 4.”

Friedman said that after talking through the logic of the switch with Yamamoto and Flaherty, both pitchers were “excited about it.”

Friedman also said he’s not concerned about Yamamoto potentially being overexcited about making his first major league playoff start in a series opener, not after watching Yamamoto allow two hits in seven scoreless innings of a nationally televised June 7 game at Yankee Stadium.

“To come into such a hostile environment and see him improve his game … we talked about it at the time, it’s not easy,” Friedman said. “He has experience pitching in a lot of big games, and the one thing we’re really confident about is that this moment won’t affect him. He’s going to take it in and feed off that adrenaline and do what he does.