LOS ANGELES — As the night progressed and yet another needle was threaded, Dave Roberts counted outs. If the Los Angeles Dodgers were going to mark their return to the World Series on Sunday night, it would come in another bullpen game. The man once jeered by a sitting president had entered this month knowing that much of how he would be viewed would depend on what happened after he raised his right or left arm to the sky.
To complete a toppling of the New York Mets, Roberts would have to do it plenty.
When he’d made his last move, deploying Blake Treinen for his longest outing in 36 months to get the final six outs, all he could do was count. He stared at the scoreboard as Treinen’s pitch count went up in the ninth inning. This, Roberts said later, was the last card he had to play. A large lead did little to ease the tension that had mounted for months. Another early playoff exit for these Dodgers would have signaled another failure. So Roberts got up to his tip-toes as he awaited the final out. When it came, a harmless groundout that Chris Taylor scooped and threw over to first base, Roberts raised his arms triumphantly.
Roberts and the Dodgers are going back to the World Series. They needed seven pitchers Friday night to secure a 10-5 victory. Eleven days prior, facing elimination and another offseason of questions, reflection and perhaps reimagination after a billion-dollar offseason gone bust, Roberts deployed eight pitchers to keep the Dodgers’ season alive. They delivered a shutout. Again, in a season that ensnared multiple whole pitching staffs due to injuries and tested even the Dodgers’ impenetrable depth, Roberts had kept them on the tracks.
Dave Roberts won over players by understanding them: ‘He manages this club based on the guys in this room. He doesn’t do it off a spreadsheet.’ (Harry How / Getty Images)
The team celebrated a pennant in the home clubhouse at Dodger Stadium for the first time in this sparkling era. For the third time in less than a month, they turned this room into a bacchanal. Kiké Hernández hounded president of baseball operations Andrew Friedman to find more beer. Gavin Lux chased around National League Championship Series MVP Tommy Edman with bubbly. Roberts found his $700 million superstar and doused Shohei Ohtani with two bottles of sparkling wine at once. When Ohtani sought to return the favor, Roberts soaked it in.
The Dodgers, on the verge of a breaking point eleven days ago and throughout the last few months, are four wins over the New York Yankees away from winning a championship.
“Go figure,” Roberts said with a smirk.
With a cigar in his mouth and smoke pluming into the night, Roberts entered rarified air. Four years have elapsed since the last time Roberts and the Dodgers celebrated a pennant. Corey Seager and Cody Bellinger and Justin Turner were still there, stalwarts from the core that brought pennants in 2017 and 2018. That No. 5 jersey belongs to Freddie Freeman now. It’s Shohei Ohtani vying for an MVP. The Dodgers wore down in the NLCS in 2021 and couldn’t repeat their 2020 magic. They didn’t even make it there either of the last two seasons, crashing out in the NLDS against opponents they’d walloped during the regular season.
“Shoot, we just won the championship four years ago,” Roberts reflected to The Athletic on Sunday afternoon. “It doesn’t feel like it.”
So, Roberts acknowledged this month, there was a sense he was managing for his job this postseason. Such is the nature of the occupation.
“We have every team in baseball trying to beat us because of the nature of the sport,” club president Stan Kasten said. “And everyone’s to push us down. That’s gravity, that it’s going to come down. What we’ve been doing is defying gravity.”
Now, Roberts has brought his team to October’s final stage. For nine years, he’s managed the Dodgers to more regular-season success than any manager of any era. And now, he’s one of just six managers since the postseason expanded beyond the World Series (in 1969) to claim four pennants with one club, joining Earl Weaver, Sparky Anderson, Bobby Cox, Joe Torre and Tommy Lasorda.
Roberts laughed at the company.
“It feels like that’s part of the equation, to be back on that stage,” Roberts said before it soaked in. “In this moment to kind of appreciate the company that I’m in, that I’ve now become part of, it’s actually pretty emotional to be quite honest.”
The championship ring he does own came in the middle of an artificial bubble. That is bittersweet in itself, Roberts acknowledged.
“I know that we’ve got a championship under our belt,” Roberts said. “There’s still somewhat of a void. I want that parade. I just feel that we’ve had teams in the past, I’ve grown, and this team is unique. I think it’s battle-tested. For this ballclub, and for this city, I just really want to finish it this year.”
The hits kept coming for the Dodgers throughout the summer. Twelve different pitchers had at least one stint on the injured list this season. Yoshinobu Yamamoto, who the Dodgers spent $375 million on and made the richest pitcher in baseball history, missed several months with a shoulder injury. Mookie Betts missed months with a broken hand. Freddie Freeman missed time due to his youngest son’s illness before playing through a fractured finger and, for the last month, on a badly sprained right ankle that left him out of the lineup altogether for the pennant clincher. The training room has become a way station, with several Dodgers limping their way just to reach this point.
One of the potential breaking points came in September when Roberts called an impromptu meeting. The Dodgers had seen their grasp on the division start to slip. They’d fallen into another stretch of middling baseball that had become more frequent this summer than any in their recent, dominant history. Tyler Glasnow, the club’s major trade acquisition this winter, was officially out for the season. Standout rookie Gavin Stone was about to be, too.
Roberts spoke. He reassured them. He kept the train on the tracks.
“It was one time that we felt like we were down as a team,” Teoscar Hernández said this week. “And one meeting changed everything.”
“I think there were times during the year with some of the injuries we had where it was a little bit deflating,” Friedman said. “And I think Doc did a great job of getting in front of that and pumping some enthusiasm and optimism into the group. It was quick. They flushed it quickly. And came out the next day focused.”
“(He) doesn’t get down when times get tough – and we had a lot of tough times,” Kasten said.
The Dodgers rallied. They won the division the next week, holding off the same San Diego Padres club they’d rally back from a 2-1 deficit against in the NLDS just two weeks later.
“Doc – the job that he does definitely does not get enough credit,” Max Muncy said. “He manages this club based on the guys in this room. He doesn’t do it off a spreadsheet. He doesn’t do it off what someone tells him. He walks around and he has conversations with everybody. He knows how pitchers are feeling. He knows how the position players are feeling. … Doc manages that and he never puts that out there. He does an amazing job.”
A group of superstars and accomplished veterans emphasized quality time. They chartered separate buses to San Diego for the Division Series and separate flights to and from New York. They removed distractions during the bye week and came together.
“Every team gets to spend this much time together, but not everyone is intentional about the time,” Mookie Betts said. “I think Doc does a really good job in making us be intentional about the time we spend with each other. … Genuine, good quality time is different than just being in the cage. We’re in the cage talking about each other’s families or talking about hitting, whatever it is. It’s really good time we get to spend with each other.”
If the Dodgers were going to survive against the Mets, they reasoned, it was going to take the long game. Their starting pitching was wobbly. Their bullpen that had closed out the Padres had suffered a blow in the process: Alex Vesia, their most reliable left-hander, suffered an intercostal injury in the series clincher. They’d only have Yamamoto available to pitch one time. That forced creativity. In Game 2, it meant not pushing any of their top relievers to keep an early one-run deficit there, even as the lineup mounted a comeback. When Jack Flaherty struggled in Game 5, Roberts did not chase after a two-run deficit.
In that sense, Roberts acknowledged this week, he’s evolved. He’s grown. Facing an early deficit in Game 5, he went to Brent Honeywell, a waiver claim who has battled injuries throughout his career and at 29 years old had clung onto a spot amongst this battered group. Honeywell threw 4 2/3 innings that night – his most in a big league game – and asked for more. The message was simple, Honeywell said: “Save the dawgs.” The Dodgers’ high-leverage relievers would rest up for another potential clincher in Game 6.
Roberts pulled Honeywell aside on Saturday, the Dodgers’ workout day back in Los Angeles. Their conversation was brief.
“It’s hard to put into words,” Honeywell said of what Roberts has meant to him. “Dave wants the best for all of us. … Not one time have I questioned him.”
That plan allowed Roberts to count outs on Sunday, even if it still required having rookie Ben Casparius, who didn’t make the Dodgers’ initial postseason roster, soak up four of them.
The Dodgers got help from a lineup that found contributions throughout. In years past, Roberts acknowledged, moving Edman — a switch-hitting utility man acquired at the deadline who has caught fire this series — to the cleanup spot would’ve been unthinkable. Same with moving Will Smith to the eighth spot in the order. He would’ve found a way to get Freeman back in the lineup despite his obvious struggles with his injured ankle this October. Edman drove in the first four runs of the night to expand the Dodgers’ early lead. Smith, who had five hits through his first 36 postseason at-bats, hit a two-run homer to add more breathing room.
“Honestly, it’s trying to treat every guy the same, and honesty, and building trust,” Roberts said. “I think you can ask any guy on this team that, they trust me, they trust our staff. When you have that, you can ask anything of them. That’s what it is. This has been the most trying year, but it’s been the most satisfying.”
For the last few weeks, the Dodgers – led by their manager – have played like they can defy gravity. Doing so four more times means a championship. And this time, a parade.
(Top photo of Dave Roberts: Sean M. Haffey / Getty Images)
