Los Angeles Dodgers manager Dave Roberts will never get the respect he deserves

LOS ANGELES — Los Angeles Dodgers manager Dave Roberts finally designed something none of his predecessors ever did. On Sunday night, after a blinding performance by hometown boy Jack Flaherty, the Dodgers ended their victory over the New York Mets with a 33-inning scoreless streak, setting a record for the most games in MLB history.

Yes, that is just the first game of the National League Championship Series. Yes, there are more opportunities for most of these events because the playoffs consist of many more innings than they used to, and yes, the previous record-holding team – the 1966 Orioles – did so with mostly starting pitchers. But that probably makes the whole thing more impressive.

We’re not talking about the streak that got here when it was nearly letting the guys cook and getting some magic plays from legends like Brooks Robinson and Frank Robinson to seal the deal. This streak occurred during the elimination games and it happened with two handfuls of pitchers. The level of difficulty is clearly higher.

Also value noting: The Dodgers set franchise records for the biggest blowouts in postseason history once they did this. They set a record on Wednesday with an 8-0 win over the Padres in an elimination game on the road. On Sunday, they broke that streak with a 9-0 victory over a so-called hot Mets team that had no idea what hit them.

“I thought it was clear that (Mets pitcher Kodai) Senga just didn’t have his A-game tonight. The division was non-competitive. He didn’t use a sweeper. And then he just relied on the cutter, worked behind the hitters and walked,” Roberts explained after the game. “For us to be able to go for walks and cause stress… I thought we kind of checked out tonight and got some big hits, whether we moved a guy, picked him up and then got a knock. I just thought we were really stubborn all night long. I thought the hitting coaches did a great job putting together a game plan. And then the players executed.”

Late in the second inning, with Senga unable to hit the zone, Tommy Edman got here on with no outs after Gavin Lux walked. He rebelled, taking Lux to the other side, and on the next pitch, Shohei Ohtani scored for him to increase the result in 3-0 – the kind of straightforward move that some might second-guess, but when it really works, it looks good.

The situation repeated itself later in the match and looked routine. Roberts plays with a small ball and has two sacrifices in the game after just 10 sacrifices all season.

“It’s just playoff baseball. I just think it’s a fact – the truth is that the postseason is different from the regular season. It’s about 30 meters and giving it my all, and part of that was making sure Shohei had a chance to get up,” Roberts said matter-of-factly. “It’s due to Tommy and Kiké (Hernández), the driving during these runs was amazing. And Gavin will put down a rise up, Tommy will put down a rise up, it’s just team baseball. If you’ll be able to get a man right into a shooting position, it just causes a little bit more stress.

The fact is that for all these internal achievements, for a team like the Dodgers, the only thing that matters is a World Series championship. Even a few of them don’t count when you take heed to some fans and experts.

Even if that team wins the World Series – giving the man known as “Doc” two rings and pairing him with former Dodgers manager and legendary figure Tommy Lasorda, and putting him two behind Walter Alston, who won 4 championships in each Brooklyn and Los Angeles, including Jackie Robinson’s management in 1954 and 1955 – Roberts will never get the respect he truly deserves. And it’s hard to grasp why.

First, he won in 2020, which was the 12 months of the coronavirus pandemic. Say what you will, because the season is brief and nobody else has won the World Series this season. The Dodgers even have considered one of the largest payrolls in MLB history, providing convenient cover for anyone who simply doesn’t want to offer credit to a Japanese-born black American manager. As a reminder, Roberts was the first minority manager in Dodgers history, not even the first Black one.

It’s truly inconceivable to make perhaps the biggest managerial decision in MLB history: Lasorda called on a hobbled Kirk Gibson to strike out in the bottom of the ninth to win Game 1 of the 1988 World Series – but a manager’s legacy is not defined by single lineup moves.

It doesn’t help that Roberts got here along at just the right time when his position throughout the game was being wildly devalued and the general level of public criticism on social media turned second-guessing right into a way more refined art form. All the advanced metrics and information-driven operations that make data accessible in every single place have left many game owners and other people involved with the impression that, in brief, numerous these items are easier than they appear.

“Being the manager of the Dodgers, there will always be pressure to win it all. “Dave knows that,” Jerry Hairston Jr. said Saturday. Hairston played for the Dodgers and is currently the team’s local broadcaster for Spectrum SportsNet. “This year was his best managerial work so far. We’ve been crushed by injuries, especially on the pitching side, and management has said we’ll look at it this offseason. But with so many injuries. he led us to the best record (in MLB). The last two games of the Padres series are a microcosm of what he has accomplished throughout the season. He, his staff and the players know the job isn’t done yet. They are extremely focused.”

Whether it was losing Game 3 to the Padres in the NLDS and having the next game immediately deemed a bullpen game while the opposing captain was more concerned about celebrating victory after victory, Roberts is not just a baseball stooge. Yes, he has a loaded team. Yes, their headquarters is heavy on analytics. And so, 12 months after 12 months, they appear to be sleepwalking their solution to winning division titles in the fairly weak NL West. When it involves institutional arrogance, the Dodgers are at the top. They can sign “anyone” because they’re wealthy and “everyone” desires to play there. They can “fix” any player that comes out of the trash. If you fail of their system, it will be an issue of your skills, not theirs.

But the truth is that many individuals thought beating the Padres was a job-saving victory. If they were bounced by a league opponent in the playoffs for the third 12 months in a row, it could be completely comprehensible if the team felt like they weren’t making progress with a UCLA graduate at the helm. But they didn’t lose. Roberts managed circles around Padres manager Mike Shildt (see scoreless streak) to advance. Now the Mets are so confused that guys make ridiculously pointless plays on the base paths out of desperation.

“I believed he had surgery in games 4 and five (against the Padres). “I thought he had the timing and the pulse to know when to make a move, who to go to, and even with that, (pitcher Alex) Vesia had pain in his diagonal and didn’t miss a beat,” Dodgers president of baseball operations Andrew Friedman he said on October 12. “We have such a fan base and we like it. Expectations are very high. We like it too.

“And each time we do not succeed, there’s numerous blame and numerous disenchanted people. We’d somewhat have that than individuals who don’t care. The theater of October baseball is performance-based. If you’ve a very good result, positive things are said and written. If you get a foul result, really bad things are said and written.

It didn’t hurt that Flaherty, one other black man, had the game of his life together with his mother and former Harvard-Westlake Middle School teammates in the stands. Outfielder Mookie Betts then struck out on a groundout in the ninth after scoring his first run of the game and scoring a run.

But it wasn’t a mistake either, since Flaherty was even here.

“I feel for us Jack is at the perfect time because he’s a veteran. He went through loads, ups and downs, but he found his way back,” Roberts said confidently. “It’s definitely a childhood dream for him and his family. We just knew you were testing a man and you simply felt like he could handle this market, he could handle pitching in a playoff game, starting a playoff game. This wasn’t much of a surprise to us. I felt, like I said tonight, I feel he’s going to spit out a very good one tonight. And this moment just won’t be very vital to Jack.

The day before, Flaherty had supported his manager, just as his manager had done for him when it looked like he might lose something after a four-pitch walk with red-hot Francisco Lindor in the fourth pitch.

“I think he deserves recognition around the league. “I think everything that goes on outside… that’s what the fans are like,” Flaherty said Saturday. “Someone has to be blamed. And sometimes it doesn’t always fall on the players – it all falls on the manager, the coach and so on. What he did here was amazing, especially if you look at this team… he did an amazing job of keeping everyone together. I think he deserves a lot of credit for what he’s done this year and what he’s done year after year. Winning a division isn’t easy – no matter how much money you make or how high your earnings are. This is not an easy task.”

If for some reason this team doesn’t take home the Commissioner’s Trophy but qualifies for the World Series, they may put them on trial again for a contract extension. He wakes up after the 2025 season. However, he is currently not even in the top ten highest paid managers, which seems completely incorrect. Roberts may never achieve the hagiographic brilliance of Bobby Cox or Joe Maddon, but his excellence can’t be denied.

Only in Los Angeles, where expectations and reality are completely at odds, is a man like Doc considered merely useful.