There's a pretty good history of pitchers in the playoffs doing poorly on 3 days rest. And generally, those pitchers have typically been good. Most teams who do it are doing it because the guy is an ace. So not only are we starting a guy on 3 days rest, but it's a guy who gave up 2+ runs in his final 9 regular season starts (before 1 in 4 1/3 vs SD). Mid-upper 4's ERA the last two months or since the ASB.
A lot of us on here didn't like the decision and it certainly backfired. Would we have won the game starting Assad or Rea? Not necessarily. But I would much rather have started Rea and tried to piece together a bullpen game with tomorrow off. It was a bad decision given all the data we have on pitchers starting on 3 days rest and Boyd's last 2 months. I'm not sure I would have wanted 2015 Jake Arrieta starting on 3 days rest either, let alone 2025 Matthew Boyd.