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

LOS ANGELES — Los Angeles Dodgers manager Dave Roberts has finally engineered something none of his predecessors have ever done. Sunday night, following a dazzling outing from hometown boy Jack Flaherty, the Dodgers ended their win against the New York Mets with a 33-inning scoreless streak, tying a record for most in MLB history.

Yes, it’s only Game 1 of the National League Championship Series. Yes, there are more opportunities for this kind of thing as a result of playoffs being far more rounds than they used to be, and yes, the previous team that held the record — the 1966 Orioles — did it on the backs of mainly starting pitchers. But that’s arguably what makes it all the more impressive.

We’re not talking about a streak that has come when it was just a matter of letting guys cook and getting a couple of wizardly plays from the likes of legends such as Brooks Robinson and Frank Robinson to seal the deal. This streak has happened in the midst of elimination games and it’s happened with two handfuls of pitchers. The degree of difficulty is clearly higher.

Also to be noted: The Dodgers have set franchise records for the largest blowouts in postseason history, while they were at it. Wednesday, they set the record with an 8-0 win over the Padres in an elimination game on the road. Sunday, they broke it with a 9-0 drubbing of a so-called hot Mets team that had no idea what hit them.

“I thought you could see clearly that [Mets pitcher Kodai] Senga just didn’t have his A stuff tonight. The split was noncompetitive. He didn’t use his sweeper. And then he was just relying on the cutter, working behind hitters, walking guys,” Roberts explained after the game. “For us to take our walks and create stress … I just thought tonight we kind of checked down and got some big base hits, whether moving a guy over, moving him up, and then getting a knock. I just thought all night long we were really stubborn. I thought the hitting coaches did a great job of putting together a game plan. And then the players executed.”

In the bottom of the second inning, with Senga unable to hit the zone, Tommy Edman came to the plate with no outs after Gavin Lux took a walk. He bunted, moving Lux over, and on the next pitch, Shohei Ohtani singled him home to stretch the lead to 3-0 — the kind of simple maneuver that some might second-guess, but when it works, looks brilliant.

It happened again later in the game, looking routine. Roberts playing small ball with two sacrifices in a game, after only 10 all season.

“It’s just playoff baseball. I just think that, it’s the fact — the truth of the matter is that the postseason is different than the regular season. It’s about kind of 90 feet and giving yourself — and some of that was making sure Shohei had a chance to get up,” Roberts said matter of factly. “To Tommy’s and Kiké’s [Hernández] credit, driving in those runs were huge. And Gavin getting the bunt down, Tommy getting the bunt down, it’s just team baseball. If you can get a guy in scoring position, it just creates a little bit more stress.”

The fact is that for all of these interior accomplishments, for a franchise like the Dodgers the only ones that matters are World Series championships. And even some of those don’t really count if you listen to some fans and pundits.

Even if this team goes on to win the World Series — giving the man that goes by “Doc” two rings and tying him with former Dodgers manager and legendary character Tommy Lasorda and putting him two behind Walter Alston, who won four championships in both Brooklyn and L.A., including managing Jackie Robinson in 1954 and 1955 — Roberts will never get the respect he truly deserves. And it’s hard to understand why.

For one, he won during the coronavirus pandemic year in 2020. Say what you want about it being short season, nobody else won the World Series that season. The Dodgers also have one of the largest payrolls in MLB history, providing convenient cover for anyone who simply just doesn’t want to give credit to the Black American manager who was born in Japan. Reminder, Roberts was the first minority manager in the Dodgers history, not even the first Black one.

It’s truly impossible to live up to arguably the best managerial decision in MLB history: Lasorda calling on a hobbled Kirk Gibson to pinch hit in the bottom of the ninth to win Game 1 of the World Series in 1988 — but manager legacies aren’t defined by singular lineup moves.

It doesn’t help that Roberts came along right at a time when the position was being wildly devalued across the game, and the general level of public criticism through things like social media turned second-guessing into a far more elaborate art form. All the advanced metrics and information-based operations that have data available everywhere made a lot of owners and people around the game feel like, in short, a lot of this is easier than it looks.

“Being manager of the Dodgers, there’s always gonna be pressure to win it all. Dave knows this,” Jerry Hairston Jr. said Saturday. Hairston played for the Dodgers and is now a broadcaster locally for the team on Spectrum SportsNet. “This year has been his best managerial job to date. We’ve been crushed with injuries, especially from the pitching side, something the front office said will look into in offseason. But with so many injuries. he guided us to the best record [in MLB]. The last two games of the Padres series was a microcosm of what he’s done all season. Him, his staff and the players know that the job’s not finished. They’re extremely focused.”

Whether it was coming out of a Game 3 loss to the Padres in the NLDS and immediately declaring the next one a bullpen game while his opposing skipper was more concerned about celebrating their victory after the win, Roberts is not just some baseball marionette. Yes, he has a loaded team. Yes, their front office is heavy on analytics. And yes, they seem to sleepwalk to division titles in a reasonably weak NL West year after year. As far as institutional arrogance goes, the Dodgers are up there. They can sign “anyone” because they’re rich and “everyone” wants to play there. They can “fix” any player who comes along off the scrap heap. If you fail in their system, it’s your skill issue, not theirs.

But the truth is that many people thought that beating the Padres was a job-saving victory. Had they been ousted for the third year in a row by a division foe in the playoffs, it would have been completely understandable if the team felt that they were just not progressing with the UCLA grad at the helm. But they didn’t lose. And Roberts managed circles around Padres manager Mike Shildt (see the scoreless streak) to advance. Now the Mets are so flummoxed that guys are making ridiculously boneheaded plays on the basepaths out of desperation.

“I thought he was surgical in Game 4 and Game 5 [against the Padres]. I thought he had the right feel and pulse for when to make a move, who to go to, and even with that [pitcher Alex] Vesia had the soreness in the oblique and he didn’t miss a beat,” Dodgers president of baseball operations Andrew Friedman told the Orange County Register on Oct. 12. “We have such a fan base and we love that. The expectations are super-high. We love that as well.

“And whenever we fall short of that, there’s a lot of blame to go around and a lot of disappointed people. We would much rather that than people not caring. The theater of October baseball is all outcome-based. If you have a good outcome, positive things are said and written. If you have a bad outcome, really bad things are said and written.”

It didn’t hurt that Flaherty, another Black man, threw the game of his life, with his mom and former Harvard-Westlake Middle School teammates in the stands. Then outfielder Mookie Betts got off the schneid with a bases-clearing double in the ninth after reaching and scoring the first run of the game.

But that was no mistake either, Flaherty being here at all.

“For us, I think we’re getting Jack at the perfect time as far as he’s a veteran player, he’s been through a lot, highs, lows, and found his way back,” Roberts said with confidence. “This is certainly a childhood dream for him and his family. We just knew that you vet a guy and you just feel that he can handle this market, handle pitching in a playoff game, starting a playoff game. That wasn’t really a surprise for us. I felt, like I said tonight, I think he’s going to spit out a really good one tonight. And the moment just isn’t going to get too big for Jack.”

The day before, Flaherty was supporting his manager, just as his manager did for him when it looked like he might be losing something after a four-pitch walk to the red-hot Francisco Lindor in the fourth.

“I think around the league, he gets the credit. I think everything that goes on on the outside … it’s just that’s how fans are,” Flaherty said Saturday. “Somebody’s gotta get blamed. And sometimes it doesn’t always fall on the players — it falls on manager, coaching and whatnot. He’s been incredible, what he’s done here, especially you look at this team … he’s done an unbelievable job of keeping everybody together. I think he deserves a lot of credit for what he’s done this year and what he’s done year in, year out. Winning the division’s not easy — no matter how much, no matter how high your payroll is. It’s not easy thing to do.”

If for whatever reason this team doesn’t bring home a Commissioner’s Trophy but does make the World Series, they may jerk him around yet again on a contract extension. He’s up after the 2025 season. But right now, he’s not even in the top 10 of highest-paid managers, which feels flat-out wrong. Roberts might never get the hagiographic shine of a Bobby Cox or Joe Maddon, but his ability to wrangle excellence is impossible to deny.

Only in Los Angeles, a place where expectations and reality are wildly out of sync as a matter of course, is a guy like Doc only considered serviceable.