Steve Webb
LOS ANGELES — He didn’t put a foot wrong. That’s all you can say about. Every single move that manager Dave Roberts made, and there were some questionable ones, worked out perfectly. And for a guy who’s been dismissed as an in-game manager for years, it was great to see the guy finally show what a good baseball man he is.
The knock on Roberts is that he is a slave to the algorithms and numbers-crunchers in the front office. That he too often has gone “by the book” and not trusted what his eyes were seeing on the field. The early removal of Rich Hill from the World Series a couple years ago is one move that sticks out in my head.
But not on Wednesday night. On Wednesday, Roberts managed his pitching staff brilliantly, and even if the game had gone into extras instead of ending on that glorious Chris Taylor walk-off, I have no doubt that they would have eventually prevailed. Let’s catalog the many great moves Roberts made last night:
- Pulling your ace in the top of the fifth when he’s only given up a run. Dave could see it wasn’t high-end Max Scherzer in this one. And once he’d put two guys on with nobody out in the fifth, he knew he had to make a move. Even if he had to take Scherzer kicking and screaming off the mound.
- Joe Kelly? Seriously? Putting the notoriously inconsistent Kelly into a situation fraught with peril was a tightrope walk if there ever was one, but Roberts must have seen enough quality out of Mariachi Joe this season to know that he had it in him.
- Brusdar Graterol in the sixth. Roberts saw that he had the tail end of the Cards batting order coming up in the top of the sixth, so he knew that the Bazooka could get these guys with his heat. His five-pitch sixth was completely unexpected and completely welcome.
- Going with Treinen for the heart of the lineup. Blake Treinen has been the Dodgers’ best reliever this year, so it wasn’t exactly a shock that he’d be in a tough spot like the seventh, but bringing him out for two more outs in the eighth shows that Roberts was reading the game and reading the filth that was coming out of his hand.
- Corey Knebel to end the eighth with a K. Good as Treinen was, Roberts wasn’t going to stick with him blindly. So, when that pitch count got up over 30 pitches, Doc knew that he was playing with fire leaving him in for Harrison Bader. Luckily, he had Knebel still waiting in the pen for just this moment.
- Kenley in the ninth. Good on Roberts for not doing any stunt casting and thinking he needed to bring in Julio Urias to pitch the ninth. Kenley earned Roberts’ trust during the year, and his faith in him was rewarded with a dominant ninth.
There will be times to criticize Dave Roberts again. But this Wild Card game was a flat-out masterpiece. Good for you, Dave Roberts. And now, on to San Francisco!
