The Dave Roberts Experience

He had a concept of a plan. Then the Padres turned a game-ending triple play.

(Photo by Todd Kirkland/Getty Images)

Hi friends-

This is gonna be a quick one from me because I’m in Oakland on the A’s beat this week so my mind is already occupied by one giant mess. But after watching what happened in the ninth inning of the Dodgers vs. Padres game last night I’ve decided to multitask and write about another giant mess.

You guys know how I feel about Dave Roberts. I think he’s a good man, and that he’s good at the politics of being the manager of the Los Angeles Dodgers. This includes a lot of hand shaking, dealing with press, schmoozing with billionaire owners, and managing egos the size of Jupiter and Saturn (and all their 250 moons) to keep the locker room from imploding. Given how much front offices meddle these days, high profile MLB managing jobs are often 95% fluff and 5% on-field decisions that actually matter.

Roberts has managed the Dodgers for the last nine seasons because he’s good at the fluff, and the PR obsessed Dodgers REALLY care about that stuff.

But it’s come at a cost. The Dodgers have only captured one title during that span (despite being favored almost every single year), however, because Roberts gets out-maneuvered in the playoffs by stronger tacticians when it matters most.

He pulled Rich Hill in game 4 of the 2018 World Series. He left Joe Kelly in to die in extra innings during game 5 of the NLDS. I didn’t agree with Brian Kenny last October when he blamed Roberts for the Dodgers getting swept in the NLDS (I blamed the offense), but Kenny did make a salient point that Roberts should have pulled Lance Lynn after he gave up his second homer in a row instead of waiting for Lynn to give up four homers in a row to finally yank him from the game.

I’ve never been a fan of the Dodgers using Clayton Kershaw as a reliever in the playoffs on short rest, but that seems to be a front office failure more than a reflection of Roberts’s poor decision making. Andrew Friedman wears that one, not Roberts.

But here’s the reality: when games are close late, they seem to move too fast for Roberts. He either overthinks and trips on his own thoughts or doesn’t react at all.

Lets be clear about one thing: the Dodgers found themselves trailing 4-1 last night entering the ninth inning against the Padres in their biggest game of the year not because of anything Roberts did. LA is forced to use rookie Landon Knack to start big games right now because eight of the guys ahead of him on the depth chart (Tyler Glasnow, Gavin Stone, Tony Gonsolin, Dustin May, Emmett Sheehen, River Ryan, Clayton Kershaw, and Bobby Miller) are injured. (I’m including Miller here because he never recovered physically or mentally from the shoulder injury he sustained early in the season). This is also more on Friedman and his braintrust than Roberts.

Anyway, Landon Knack going four innings and giving up four runs in a playoff game is probably the scenario Dodger fans are looking at, which means that for LA to make a deep playoff run their offense has to put up a lot of runs and their manager can’t suck.

The bottom of the Dodgers’ order greeted San Diego’s struggling closer Robert Suarez with three straight hits to start the bottom of the ninth, and cut the Padres’ lead to 4-2. The first two hits off Suarez were absolutely scorched, and clocked in at 107.9 mph and 105.5 mph, respectively.

The Dodgers had runners on first and second with no out, and trailed by a run when Miguel Rojas stepped up to the plate. Rojas was hitting ninth. Shohei Ohtani was waiting on deck.

Roberts had a concept of a plan.

He put the bunt sign on for Rojas to try to stay out of a double play, which was the correct call. Rojas got a great pitch to bunt and missed it to fall behind in the count 0-1.

Then, for reasons that are between Dave Roberts and God, he saw the Padres in this defensive alignment and decided to pull the bunt off

Notice how close Manny Machado is standing to third base. Notice how close Jake Cronenworth is standing to second base. The Padres were set up for a wheel play. Had first baseman Donovan Solano fielded a hard bunt, either Machado or shortstop Xander Bogaerts could have covered third and San Diego could have gotten the lead runner. Had Machado fielded a hard bunt, he could have thrown to Cronenworth at second, and potentially executed a double play.

Three other things could have happened:

1. Rojas could have bunted softly enough to execute the sacrifice and Ohtani would have come up with runners on second and third with one out.

2. Rojas could have laid down an amazing bunt that resulted in a hit or an error and Ohtani coming up with the bases loaded and no out.

3. Rojas could have struck out or popped out. Then Ohtani would have come up with runners on first and second and one out

In every single scenario listed above, Ohtani still gets to bat with a runner or runners on base as the tying or go-ahead run. Or, the Padres intentionally walk Ohtani and Mookie Betts gets to hit with multiple runners on base.

Here is what happened with the Angels IBB’d Ohtani to get to Betts three weeks ago:

The Dodgers only need two runs to tie, three to win. Rojas striking out and Ohtani coming up to the plate as the winning run with one out would have been a win.

But not to Roberts!

He decided after Rojas couldn’t get the bunt down on the first try he would have him swing away. “With the infield in and Bogaerts out of position, the best chance is to put the ball in play and hopefully find a hole,” Roberts said after the game while defending his decision. And while not even the biggest Roberts haters in the world could have foreseen a triple play, even here you can see the problem with his thinking. In this specific situation, with Ohtani, Betts, and Freeman on deck and your nine hitter up with no outs, the absolute last thing in the world you should be rooting for is a ground ball that might find a hole.

What happened next was shocking but somehow not surprising. Rojas hit the ball hard off the struggling Suarez right to Machado. *Because* of the defensive alignment shown above that tricked Roberts into pulling off the bunt, Machado was able to touch third base, and throw it to Cronenworth at second, who then fired it to first to execute an easy triple play.

Ohtani never got to bat. Neither did Betts or Freeman. And now the Dodgers division lead over the Padres is down to two games with five to play.

The Dodgers have a much better starting pitcher in Jack Flaherty going tonight. They will have to win this game, because tomorrow they will run out a struggling Walker Buehler against the Padres’ Joe Musgrove—who has been as good as any starter in baseball lately.

I don’t know if the Dodgers are going to win the NL West. I do know that they really need to win it and earn a BYE, because their starting pitching is the thinnest of every playoff team.

All is not yet lost. The Dodgers’ superlative offense and deep bullpen are both good enough to keep them competitive in October even though their starting pitchers are only likely to go four or five innings in playoff games. No team looks bulletproof right now. And who knows? The way Ohtani is playing lately, he may go on an all-time playoff heater that renders all this moot. World Series victories still count if you score ten runs to win 10-9.

But while the Dodgers’ hitters and relievers might be able to compensate for their starting pitching woes in October, they are not going to be able to overcome late inning boneheaded moves from their manager.