The Mystifying Failures of Dave Roberts
The image of a conquered and anguished Clayton Kershaw sitting in the dugout on Wednesday should have never happened.
The Dodgers were six outs away from advancing to the NLCS, and then they got Dave Roberts-ed.
The Dodgers manager decided to manage with his heart instead of his brain and to ignore all the data the Dodgers rely so heavy on when deploying a strategy, a decision he had discussed even prior to the game, to use future Hall of Famer Clayton Kershaw in relief.
Game 5 starter Walker Buehler had a career outing, throwing a season high 117 pitches in 6.2 innings of 1 run baseball. To put it lightly, the 24-year-old Buehler was simply marvelous.
Dave Roberts let him go out there for the 7th inning, an inning in which he hit the first batter, retired the next two, and then surrendered a walk to Nationals shortstop Trea Turner– a mistake which ended Buehler’s game, and ultimately, season.
Roberts made the grim and slow walk to the mound to get his young star and gestured with his left arm as he signaled to the bullpen, and as “We Are Young” by FUN blared out of the Dodger Stadium speakers, that meant only one thing: Kershaw was entering the game.
With two men on, two outs and the left handed hitting Adam Eaton at the plate as the Dodgers clung to a 2 run lead, this seemed to be a favorable matchup for Kershaw — and it was. Kershaw retired Eaton via strikeout on three pitches.
At this point in the game, Kershaw did his job. Eaton should’ve been the only batter he faced, period.
What happened next will live in infamy in Dodgers lore for a long time — and the sad part is it never should happened.
Roberts sent Kershaw out for the 8th inning to face the Nationals two best hitters, right handed hitter Anthony Rendon and lefty Juan Soto.
You know that scene in the final Harry Potter movie, where Voldemort says, “The boy who lived, has come to die”? That was last night. Dave Roberts sent out Harry Potter (Clayton Kershaw) to Voldemort (Rendon/Soto) to die.
Kershaw gave up back to back home runs that tied the game to the duo on back to back pitches, finally ending his outing two batters too late. Not to mention adding to his somewhat deserved postseason reputation of failure.
There is no scenario, other than a storybook pipe dream, in which the 2019 version of Kershaw should have been asked to go back out for the 8th inning to retire Rendon and Soto. None.
The Dodgers had a ripe plucking of relievers to choose from, and Dave Roberts choose with his heart instead.
Everyone in the northern hemisphere knew what to do.
1) Bring in either Kenta Maeda, who faced 15 hitters in the series and only allowed 1 baserunner, or Pedro Baez, who held right handed hitters to a .172 batting average this season, to face Anthony Rendon.
2) Bring in left-hander Adam Kolarek to face Juan Soto, a batter he had already retired in the series three times.
That was it. I knew it, you knew it, everyone knew it, and even Dave Roberts knew it, he just choose to ignore it.
Kershaw gave up home runs at a career rate this season. There’s no fault in admitting he isn’t the same Cy Young Award winning pitcher he used to be, because he isn’t. It was no secret he was vulnerable to the long ball, and sending him out in the 8th to face potential NL MVP Anthony Rendon and rising superstar Juan Soto was mindless, cruel, and to put it simply, stupid. It flatly cost the Dodgers the game and a 106 win team its season.
“Everything people say is true right now about the postseason. I understand that. Nothing I can do about it right now. It’s a terrible feeling, it really is,” a dejected Clayton Kershaw said after the game.
Kershaw is a man who walks with integrity, holds himself accountable every year, places no blame on anyone but himself, and carries the burden of his postseason failures close to his heart- and he deserved a better fate than to be thrown to the wolves.
In case you forgot, the Dodgers had the number one bullpen ERA in the National League this season. Roberts had a chance to salvage the lead, and ignored his chance yet again.
Once Kershaw gave up the first home run, that should have been it. Instead, he let Adam Kolarek continue twiddling his thumbs in the bullpen. With that decision, Roberts join the long and not-so storied lineage of managers who watch their teams lose games while their best or most able relivers watch helplessly from beyond the outfield fence.
But for Dave Roberts, once the lead vanished, the fateful and deeply puzzling decisions continued.
Fast forward to the 10th inning, Joe Kelly had just retired the side in order in the 9th, and despite dealing with an injury just last week and not having pitched multiple innings since August 24th, Roberts sent his pitcher out to die, again.
With Kenley Jansen, Pedro Baez, Dustin May, Julio Urias and Adam Kolarek (for Soto) all ready to go, Roberts froze.
Eaton walked, Rendon doubled, and even with Kolarek available, Roberts choose to intentionally walk Soto. With the bases now loaded and nobody out and Kelly laboring, Roberts remained steadfast in his stubborn and vacuous approach.
Howie Kendrick hit a grand slam which would doom the Dodgers, and Roberts failed his pitcher, players and fans, yet again.
If he wanted to push the envelope and for some ill-advised reason send Kelly out there for a second inning, fine, but the second Rendon doubled Kelly should have been lifted. Period.
It’s impossible to say if the Dodgers would’ve won the game had Roberts made the correct and obvious decisions, and impossible to say if the Dodgers would’ve beaten the Cardinals in the NLCS and the Astros or Yankees in the World Series, but Dave Roberts deprived them of the chance to do so.
For a team that won a franchise record 106 games during a magical regular season, this is not the ending this team deserved.
It’s important to not ignore that the offense deserves some of the blame, the team could muster two hits, both singles, after the second inning in Game 5. Over the series, AJ Pollock was 0-13 with 11 strikeouts, Cody Bellinger, the presumptive NL MVP, hit .211 with 0 RBI, and Corey Seager hit .150 and was 0-8 with runners in scoring position.
When you’re best hitters don’t perform, it makes it real hard to win.
That being said, the Dodgers did enough to win Game 5. Max Muncy’s 2-run home run and Enrique Hernandez’s solo home run was enough — it just wasn’t enough with Dave Roberts at the helm.
His postseason pitching decisions have come back to haunt the team year after year.
Removing Rich Hill after 4 innings and 60 pitches in Game 2 of the 2017 World Series was his most notable miscue, a possibly series-altering move that very well could have exhausted the Dodgers fragile relief corps and cost them the game.
In Game 5 of the 2017 World Series, he left Kershaw in too long, again using his heart, not his mind, the data, or common sense.
He overused Kenley Jansen using the same principles both in 2017 and 2018, went to Ryan Madson too many times in 2018, and has proved time and time again, he isn’t a capable manager of pitchers.
However, in years past, Roberts didn’t have much to work with in his bullpen. I don’t think it was his fault that Josh Fields and Brandon McCarthy were thrust into action in 2017, simply because the front office had given him no other options.
This year, it did. This year, the team had options. Reliable options.
This year, the team had it’s best bullpen it has had in years, and Roberts proved that even with a more than capable bullpen, he will still make catastrophic decisions.
It’s very hard to part ways with a manager who’s led the team to four straight division titles, two World Series appearances, and a 393-257 regular season record, but it might be what has to be done for the Dodgers to capitalize on their surplus of talent and finally win a World Series title.
Success in this league isn’t easy to come by, but what good is all the regular season success, all the talent, and all the effort if the manager of the team stands stalwart, shield raised and sword leveled against the oncoming spectre of success?
A manager should put his players in a position to succeed, not send them out to die a cruel and tragic death. Simply put, a manager should not have as much impact on a game as the players do. Time and again, Dave Roberts has.
Dave Roberts has proven he cannot handle pitchers. He’s proven he cannot manage pitchers. He’s proven he will make the wrong decision more often than not. And frankly, he might’ve proven he’s not the man for the Dodgers.
Yes, Clayton Kershaw, cool kicks and all, gave up two home runs and Joe Kelly gave up a grand slam, but with the right manager, they wouldn’t have been forced into situations in which they were not best suited to succeed.
The reality is this, The Dodgers gave Roberts a new 4-year contract in December of 2018, and I’d say it’s unlikely they decide to terminate that deal. But man, Roberts has given them all the ammunition in the world for them to do so.
-David Rosenthal (follow David on twitter @_therealdrose)
