Dodgers Interview: Doc on another gut-punch loss in “the Lou”
“Our Margin Is Small Right Now”
ST. LOUIS — The Dodgers lost another tight one on Saturday, falling 2-1 to the Cardinals in St. Louis, and manager Dave Roberts didn’t sugarcoat the problem afterward: the team isn’t capitalizing when it counts.
“It just makes it… the way things are going right now, our margin is small,” Roberts said. “We’ve got to find a way to capitalize on whatever opportunities we do get, and recently we haven’t.”
Despite another excellent outing from Yoshinobu Yamamoto—who tossed six shutout innings—the Dodgers squandered chance after chance. They finished the day 0-for-12 with runners in scoring position and are now 1-for-26 in the first two games of the series. Roberts admitted he hadn’t seen that stat but wasn’t surprised. “They’re making pitches when they need to,” he said. “There’s some strikeouts, some soft contact… We’re just not putting good swings on some of these pitches.”
The Dodgers have racked up 19 hits across two games in St. Louis, yet have just one run to show for it. When asked how the team can stay focused despite such frustrating results, Roberts emphasized trust in the process. “It kind of goes in waves and you can’t ride the emotional waves,” he said. “Each guy is putting in the work. They’re prepared. It’s going to turn.”
Saturday’s game unraveled in the late innings after a solid start. Rookie reliever Ben Casparius was charged with the loss after a couple of misplays in the field and a slider left up to Nolan Arenado, who drove in the walk-off run. “Ben’s been excellent this year,” Roberts said, but noted that the game “sped up on him a little” in the ninth. “He thought he had more time and didn’t make a good throw,” Roberts added of the bunt play that set the stage for the loss.
The manager also addressed a growing injury concern: Tony Gonsolin is being shut down after experiencing elbow discomfort. “With a pitcher, when there’s elbow discomfort, we just didn’t see him making his next start,” Roberts explained. “It seemed like the logical thing to get him off the line, give him a few days not to play catch, and hopefully that pain subsides.”
Gonsolin is expected to undergo scans soon, though the team found out about the discomfort just a day earlier. The loss of Gonsolin comes at a time when the rotation is already thin. “We’re dealing with whatever comes our way,” Roberts said. “I don’t want to wonder what else could happen, because we all know Murphy’s Law.”
On a more positive note, Yamamoto’s deep start was a welcome boost. “It was huge,” Roberts said. “It puts us in a good spot going into tomorrow with Clayton on the mound.”
Roberts also defended his decision to stick with Hyeseong Kim in a key late-inning at-bat against a left-hander. “He’s hanging in there, he’s fighting, taking good at-bats,” Roberts said. “I wanted to give Hyeseong an opportunity to put the ball in play—which he did—and also have him leading off the next inning, which happened.”
Ultimately, though, the story of the game was another missed opportunity. With another one-run loss and an offense that continues to strand runners, Roberts and the Dodgers will now try to salvage the series in Sunday’s finale.
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