Dodgers Digest Los Angeles Dodgers Baseball Blog
Well, well, well, how the turn tables.
When I wrote about the whole Manny Machado/throwing ball incident last week, it came from a place of emotion — mostly anger. It seemed like it was happening again to the Dodgers. They were the top or one of the top teams in baseball throughout the 162-game slate, only to be on the brink of another early exit. The fact that it was against the Padres made the potential reality staring the Dodgers and fans in the face sting a little more.
From the fans/public perspective, the Dodgers’ reaction to the situation looked soft (my Twitter replies confirmed as much). It looked problematic. It looked desperate. Dave Roberts, however, took it upon himself to do what a manager should do — attempt to take pressure off his guys in a moment when the pressure was at the highest point this season.
“‘As a manager, you never want to make it about you. But I just felt in that situation, if we could take it off our guys a little bit … Manny and I have a really good relationship. I would take him any day. But I don’t think that diversion was a bad thing for our guys. And they responded by having my back.'”
It turns out, Doc knows more about his team and managing than I do! Imagine that.
The Dodgers went onto drop Game 3 by a 6-5 score, but from the moment of that disastrous 6-run second inning in that game, the pitching staff has not allowed a single run.
It’s truly unbelievable.
I’m not saying there’s a direct 1:1 correlation between Roberts’ ploy and the pitching, but the mood has shifted substantially since that moment. It has definitely done so among the fan base, but possibly even in the clubhouse, even if the players would never admit that, publicly.
For me, things felt OKish after Game 1 before the dread and despair set in after Games 2 and 3. But since, it’s almost as if the Dodgers flipped the proverbial switch and are now playing with the confidence, swagger and offense (on top of the pitching/defense) necessary to make a deep playoff run.
It hasn’t felt this way since 2020 and before that, 2017. It’s also fickle, so things could change. But for whatever reason, it seems like this is the formula needed to take down a red-hot Mets’ club (but this also doesn’t mean the series is over — far from it). We’ll see if the Dodgers can keep it up in Game 2 and the rest of the series.
And here’s hoping they can, because when Dodger baseball is good, there’s almost no better feeling.
