Image Credit: ESPN.com
Los Angeles Dodgers’ first-year manager Dave Roberts and his eighth-inning decisions were the subject of serious criticism Sunday night after the Dodgers lost Game 1 of the NLCS to the Chicago Cubs. With one out and a man on second in the bottom of the eighth inning, Roberts chose to intentionally walk Jason Heyward to set up a force play and get a righty-righty matchup for Joe Blanton against Javier Baez. Now, this was just the beginning of the Roberts bashing. The critics questioned why he chose to walk Heyward, who had the third-lowest OPS in the Majors among qualified players in the regular season, to get to Baez, the Cubs’ hottest hitter. But Roberts trusted that Blanton’s stuff, specifically his slider, would be more effective against the free-swinging righty Baez than the disciplined lefty Heyward. It worked. Blanton got Baez to pop out for the second out of the inning. That's when the "chess match" truly began. Roberts decided to intentionally walk pinch-hitter Chris Coghlan to load the bases and force the go-ahead run to third base, to get to Aroldis Chapman’s spot in the batting order, forcing Joe Maddon to pinch hit for Chapman, who came in with no outs and bases loaded in the top of the eighth. So when Roberts walked Coghlan, who entered that plate appearance 8-for-17 (.471 BA) in his career off Blanton, to get to Chapman’s spot, Maddon countered with Miguel Montero. Blanton had Montero down 0-2, needing just one strike to get out of trouble with the game still tied, but hung a slider, which Montero launched over the right-center field fence for a grand slam. The next batter, Dexter Fowler, followed with a solo homer, and the Cubs went into the top of the ninth up 8-3 and won the game 8-4. Despite losing the game and having his bold move backfire in the worst way, Roberts made the right call. Sure, Roberts’ gamble to get Chapman out of the game cost him five runs, but the rationale behind the decision makes perfect sense. He had an opportunity to essentially by himself remove the Cubs’ best pitcher from the game, and he took it. Current Dodgers are a combined 2-for-30 (.067 BA) in their careers in the regular season off Chapman. So instead of having to face the fireballer southpaw in the top of the ninth, the lefty-heavy Dodgers lineup was in line to face righty Hector Rondon, a much more favorable matchup, in a tie game. Although the Dodgers were down five runs by the time they actually got to face him in the ninth, Rondon’s underwhelming inning of work (two hits, one earned run) was all you needed to see to understand why Roberts gambled. Rondon looked incredibly shaky in a stress-free inning and the Dodgers were on him, so imagine how he would’ve pitched with the game on the line and no margin for error. There’s no doubt the Dodgers would’ve had a significantly better chance to score off Rondon than Chapman and take the lead with the game still tied, had that still been the situation in the ninth. Had the Dodgers escaped the jam, they would’ve been in much better shape than the Cubs moving forward in the game and potentially extra innings as well. Chapman was out of the game while the Dodgers still had their best reliever, Kenley Jansen, available. That scenario never came into play, though, because Robert’s move backfired. But just because it didn’t work, doesn’t mean it was the wrong decision. Roberts was thinking ahead to the ninth and beyond, which you have to do in a game like that. You still have to think about the current inning and get through that one first, but if you’re not thinking ahead, you’re putting your team at a disadvantage. If it were Andrew Miller on the mound for the Cubs, for example, no one, and I mean no one, questions the move to force him out of the game, so why question it to force out Chapman, arguably the second-best reliever in baseball? And not to put this all on Blanton, who was an unsung hero for the Dodgers all season and in the NLDS, but if he makes a better 0-2 pitch to Montero, the Dodgers get out of the eighth with no harm done. As anticipated, Blanton’s 0-2 offering was a slider, but instead of burying it in the dirt and having it break down toward Montero’s back foot like he wanted it to, he hung it... badly. If he bounces it almost like a waste pitch, or even intentionally thows a waste pitch, Montero probably swings at it and misses, and the inning ends as a crucial missed opportunity for the Cubs with the momentum in the Dodgers’ favor. Even with a man on third in a tie game in the late innings, burying a breaking ball in the dirt is the right call if you trust your catcher. Blanton said after the game that that’s what he was trying to do, so it’s clear he trusted Grandal to smother anything in his direction. So let’s recap that bottom of the eighth inning: Two intentional walks, one that forced the go-ahead run to third and the bases loaded, and two home runs later, Roberts still made the right decision. When you simplify the entire situation and break down the inning batter by batter, it’s hard not to justify Roberts’ decision making. The main critics of his managerial moves were the advanced stats/sabermetric guys. They’re the ones crying out against the move to load the bases with two outs instead of going after Coghlan because it increased the Cubs’ “win probability added” and hurt the Dodgers’ chances. I won’t deny that sabermetrics are improving the game in some ways, but as I recall, just a few days prior, the Cubs were given a 2.5 percent chance to win NLDS Game 4 against the Giants entering the ninth inning down three runs, and they won. The bottom line is, advanced stats can only take you so far. The game has to be decided on the field and in the dugout, not on a calculator or computer spreadsheet. And if Roberts’ moves paid off and the Dodgers had won Game 1, Maddon would’ve been the manager getting second-guessed, not Roberts. Instead of badgering the Dodgers’ skipper over his bold moves, reporters would’ve questioned Maddon’s decisions to pinch-hit for Jon Lester after he threw just 77 pitches in six strong innings, for waiting until the bases were loaded in the top of the eighth to bring in Chapman, or for not bunting with Addison Russell with a man on second and no outs in the bottom of the eighth. If the Dodgers lose this series, it won’t be because of Roberts’ gamble. But if they win this series, it could very well be because of their manager’s willingness to take risks.
1 Comment
Mary
10/20/2016 01:24:34 pm
Wel worth reading. I understand better his reasoning. Joe Maddox is from Hazleton so right now I'm a Cubs fan.
Reply
Leave a Reply. |
My WritingI use this page to post any feature stories and columns I write in my free time that aren't affiliated with another publication. Archives
March 2020
|