Passing of the Torch

And so far my strategy for this series is working perfectly. We’re scoring more runs than the Pads each game! Sweep time tonight as I predicted. Not enough starting pitching. But if they sign Bauer for next year and Gore is as good as advertised then we’re in for a dogfight next year and years to come. I love it!

Ok STB I’ll bite. You’re an idiot! Ha ha. I think with the blister issue pitching more frequently would be an issue and he’s just too good as a starter. It’s always good to be in the lead in the 5-6 inning mark. Even if that’s all he can give us this year

May is starting tonight’s game for the Dodgers. I can’t watch since it is on MLB network and I do not get that station. DRAT!

Good comments from all. I am absorbing all of this info. MLB today announced that the QO will be 18.9 million this year. No way Kike, Joc, or Baez get that kind of offer. They might have to give it to Turner unless they reach a deal with him for an extension before he declares free agency. I think they try to bring him back. William, none of the NL games are on TBS. FS1 is carrying both the NLDS and NLCS. The World Series will be on FOX. As for Jansen, I think pitching him in back to back games is no longer an option. I think the main reason Roberts was lulled into thinking it was a good idea was that in game 1, it only took him 9 pitches to get the last outs. But what is more disturbing to me is that he could not get the job done against the bottom of the order. He struck out Myers on 3 pitches. Then the hard come backer he could not catch and then the wheels came off. Why he was still out there after 2 men were on is the most puzzling thing to me except for the fact that Kelly did not even start to warm up until Jansen had those 2 guys on. I would have had someone warming up immediately after the hit. If this were the 2017 Jansen, that would not be needed. But this version has not been that kind of a pitcher. Kelly had only pitched 3 plus innings since his reinstatement on the roster. So he was bound to be rusty and his control could not have been very good. Myself, I would have had McGee in there instead. But that’s me. Offensively, they looked better. Muncy has begun to get more lucky and balls are falling in better. Seager had a much better game and Barnes was outstanding. Smith is back to hitting the ball hard, but right at someone. I would not have hit for Pollock. He has been one of the better hitters and he has done it against both right and left. I do agree that Roberts, being the players manager that he is, goes with his heart instead of his head sometimes. And it has cost them. But this time he got away with it. I am not worrying about next year until this season is over for the Dodgers. The Padres will be better next year and a real threat to the string of NL West titles the Dodgers have strung together. Their young guys will be a year older, and they have some pretty good young guns of their own in the pipeline. The one thing I think Friedman will definitely have to address is the closer position. If one does not come from within, they definitely have to do some hard thinking on what to do with Jansen. One more thing. Thinking Bellinger is not a good hitter is inane. Belli has the ability to be very good. How he develops, especially after a season like this one, will say an awful lot about the player he will become. And unless they found a free agent even close to his ability’s, he won’t be going anywhere.

How many “lip readers” do we have on this site? When replaying the incident with Machado they now block out his mouth! The profanity was obvious. Save Joe Kelly for a time Machado is batting with no one on base and the game not in doubt. See if Kelly can control that 100 mph fastball to put it in Machado’s ribs. Too bad we don’t have a Don Drysdale, or Bob Gibson.

Everyone is complaining about Roberts and closing but I don’t see anyone offering up solutions. Who do you want in the .9th to face Tatis, Machado and a Hosmer?

Per Pedro Maura

“The Dodgers say Dustin May will start tonight.”

So Gonsolin could come out of the pen? Either he or Urias needs to be available for tomorrow night if it goes 4.

Re: Joe Kelly last night – did anyone notice that he threw very few fastballs and that when he threw them they were usually in the 95 MPH range? When Kelly is “right” he is up around 97 – 98 MPH. And all of those breaking balls in the dirt…geez.

Kelly was on the DL with shoulder problems from 8/9 until 9/10, and then he served a 5 day suspension and was activated 9/16. He pitched 3 2/3 innings between 9/17 – 9/26, allowing 3 hits, 4 walks, 4 Ks, and 3 runs. I watched several of those games and remember 2 when he only threw breaking balls. He didn’t look good and wasn’t throwing hard, which is how he looked last night.

Why would they possibly bring him into a game under those circumstances?

I believe all of us were holding our breath last night. And I don’t believe it’s inaccurate to say we all thought the same thing that the writers quoted here thought. Gulp. wtf is Roberts doing? Closing by matchups is past due, you know it, I know it and the American people know it. Roberts doesn’t. The second thing is it’s clearly obvious to me that Jansen cannot throw more than 15 pitches after pitching last night. If you risk back to back with this guy, personally I wouldn’t do it, you just cannot let him throw as many pitches as he did last night. Can’t do it. You are blowing it if you do.

The Dodgers won anyway because they are better, Bellinger and so forth. But here’s something I believe everyone can see and William just stated clearly – the window remains open but the Padres are crawling through it. There just isn’t that much separating these two teams and a glaring handicap for them is that they are currently without 2 of their top 3 starting pitchers. If Lamet and Clevinger were 100% who knows where this 5 game series goes.

I hope this series ends tonight. I don’t want give the Padres any air at this point. I also hope Roberts gives some serious thought to his bullpen management going forward. You’ve done this sh*t before and it didn’t work out so well. You did it again last night. Learn. Don’t let it happen anymore.

OK folks, here’s the answer to our closer problem:

1) Kenley isn’t getting the job done. He’s out.

2) Buehler (because of the blister) can’t pitch far into games when he starts so his innings have been limited.

3) New closer – Walker Buehler. He certainly has the stuff and the attitude for the job.

4) Starters for the next two series: Kershaw, Urias, Gonsolin, May, VGon (who started in the minors last year)

5) Add White and/or Gray to the roster for long relief

I realize most of you will think this is crazy, but hey, 2020 has been a crazy year.

MLB Network showed something that was missed live last night. When Grishom caught Smith’s ball at the warning track, Grisholm dropped the ball over the wall into the Dodgers pen taunting Graterol

Some extended thoughts. First, it was a thrilling game, and we should all enjoy the fun of actually having playoff baseball to watch, that is something good in itself. And of course it was even better to win the game.

The Dodgers had better win the title this year, because their window may well be closing, at least relative to other teams in this league, mainly the Padres and Braves. Which Dodgers can we reasonably expect to improve next season? A few: May, probably; maybe Gonsolin, Graterol. In the lineup, not many, though hopefully Bellinger will have a better year. Meanwhile, SD will definitely be better next year. I would be surprised if they do not win the division.

I and others have pointed out that Jansen is not reliable, he was a great reliever for us as recently as 2017, but he is not now. And every time he would come in and actually pitch well, many would say, see, you Jansen critics don’t know what you are talking about! Actually one does does not have to be an expert on metrics or pitching fundamentals to simply see that for every good effort, he tosses in a bad one. And how many times this short season has he either not gotten out of the ninth, or barely done so? This game he could not. Usually. Roberts leaves him in, and this time he didn’t. I think it is ridiculous that the Dodgers have let Jansen stay as the closer for the last two years, not going all-out to get a top closer from another team. They did get Trenein, but he is not a top-level closer, which you need. The lack of one may ruin us against the Braves or possibly the Rays, because they do have very good back-end relief pitchers. But maybe it is our year, and we will get away with it this time. Let’s hope so.

People are applauding Kelly for managing to get the final out after loading the bases on walks. He did come close to striking out Tatis who barely tipped a possible last strike, and he made some pretty good pitches to Machado, before ending up walking both of them. He came so close to blowing this game, and it would have been a repeat of the last game vs. the Nationals. This is all we had for the bottom of the ninth in a crucial game, Jansen and Kelly? We do miss Ferguson, undoubtedly.

Again, the Dodgers ownership and general management has an approach which is commendable in many ways, but is either arrogantly or penuriously cavalier when it comes to taking the final steps to build a championship team. We needed a closer in the winter meetings, and we needed one at the trade deadline, and no such moves were made at all. “Oh, well, we’ve got a strong team, let’s just leave it, we know we’ll be competitive.” And yes, they are very competitive, but they don’t win any titles, and that is not some kind of bad luck it is mostly due to the fact that there are always another team or two which is built better and stronger, and managed more effectively, and comes up in the clutch. I’m thinking of the Cardinals of fairly recent seasons, and the Giants, also the Phillies teams which beat us for the pennant. All it takes is for there to be one team which is better, and whose ownership and management goes all out to add key players and shore up potential weaknesses, and you lose to them. And it is not the same team each year, of course. We’ve seen the Padres now go out and get all sorts of players, and they won’t stop. What will we do in the offseason?

If we lose either of Seager or Bellinger, we will not win any pennants, because we don’t have much else, with the notable exception of Betts, of course. Turner, Pederson, Lux, Pollock, even Smith, this is not close to enough to win anything. I don’t follow the minors as closely as many of you do, but I doubt that we have any great Tatis type players down there. It is hard to consistently win when you draft low, but then you have to do what a few other franchises do, go out and add top players. We absolutely did with Betts, but that is a wonderful exception. The Yankees do it, and they have had problems with their pitching, even though they have built a fearsome lineup, but they will keep doing it until they win. San Diego spent a lot of money on Hosmer, then Machado, they picked up Clevinger, they are determined to be the best team in baseball. To me, the Dodgers seem to be close to their last great year for a while. I certainly hope I am wrong in this view.

I will enjoy the rest of the playoffs. TBS has had some good coverage after the game, and it is nice to see them praise the Dodgers. We have a great group of players, and they all seem classy and focused. Much of the fun of following Dodgers baseball has been hoping that next year will be even better than this one. I don’t expect our ownership to change any of its patterns. We got Betts because we had a lot of excess cap money available. Will we do something like that again, to stay up at the top of the league? Or are we going to try to do it again, one last time, with essentially the same group of players, and then watch Seager and/or Bellinger leave, and be looking up at the best two or three teams in our league? No one can expect their team to be great every year, but we have squandered opportunities to cash in some great regular seasons. The way out of this is spending money on a couple of top free agents, to shore up the declining parts.

Post-Game Presser Notes:

CK:

He said he was just okay last night. His slider was not as sharp as it was against the Brewers.

On the HR to Machado, CK knew Machado likes the pitch low and in, and the slider did not break as much as CK wanted. Looking at the replay, it had a lot of the plate. CK knew it was a bad pitch. His pitches just did not come out right in the 6th.

Hosmer HR – He said he went once too many times to the same spot for Hosmer. Bad pitch at the wrong time.

CK praised his team’s defense. He said the Padres lineup is exceptional from 1 to 9, and they hit a lot of good balls that were defended well. Belli, CT3, JT, Muncy’s digs at 1B. He also praised “Barnesy”.

Belli:

“It’s going to take a while to wind down from that one”. “That is some Post-Season baseball right there.”

When asked what was better, the HR or stealing the HR. He did not hesitate. The catch was better. He was asked if Brusdar thanked him, and Belli laughed and said, “Yeah he caught me right away in the dugout”. When asked about Graterol/Machado, Belli said he really did not know anything about it until later.

He said he was surprised about the HR to CF because he hasn’t been hitting anything out in CF even in BP.

Doc:

With the walks to Fernando Tatis, Jr. and Manny in the 9th, he gave credit to both hitters for grinding and not giving in. “They spoiled some good pitches, took some good pitches and earned the walks.

On KJ, “I have to keep thinking through it.” “He threw some good pitches, but 30 pitches to get 2 outs was a lot.”

On taking Bazooka out, Doc said that Graterol had not yet finished an inning, sat, came out to throw a full inning, sat, and then gone back out. Doc did not feel that the playoffs was a good time to test him in that spot. He liked KJ with that part of the Padres lineup coming up. He trusted KJ could get three outs.

On the Graterol/Machado dust up, Doc said that Brusdar is emotional and it was an emotional moment. Doc said that Manny took exception, but “everything is okay.”

On Belli’s catch, “Great players make great play in big moments.”

The double steal was all Mookie/Corey. It did not come from the dugout.

There was a good article about Kenley and Roberts by Pedro Moura (who I think is great) in The Athletic. Here is one particular comment on the article (the quality of commentary on that webzine can be quite good):

“The decisionmaking process for relief pitching in this game was absolutely mind-boggling. Starting from when Treinen left the game, Roberts more or less used the least-reliable remaining members of his bullpen.

Graterol’s got an amazing arm and will probably be a good contributor someday, but he currently doesn’t strike anyone out and has never been used in high leverage – and how he’s facing Fernando Tatis Jr in a 1 run game with a runner in scoring position?!?

Jansen’s been shaky and is of concern, and mysteriously recorded 2 outs yesterday in a relatively meaningless scenario. Kelly’s barely pitched all year.

The best 5 relievers on this team all year were McGee, Kolarek, Ferguson, Treinen and Gonzalez. One of those guys is gone to Tommy John surgery. Of the remaining 4, 2 pitched yesterday. One of those guys appeared today anyway. Somehow Kolarek and McGee, who have been fantastic against guys from both sides of the plate, haven’t thrown a pitch in this series. I understand that they are left handed, but they have acquitted themselves well against right handed hitters this year and McGee in particular has been, by far, the most dominant member of the Dodger bullpen.

It is inexplicable that these guys are being used this way. It simply does not make any sense at all, and is completely inconsistent with how they were used in the regular season.

Even Baez and Floro, who are not exactly known for their reliability, would have been better choices than any of the 3 pitchers who pitched after Treinen left this game.

The only saving grace is that due to pitch counts and usage, the Dodgers will more or less be forced to use the better members of their bullpen as Jansen will be unavailable after throwing 30 pitches, and Kelly and Graterol’s availability for back to backs is not established. But what an incredible unforced error this entire game nearly was.

I’ve long been a defender of Dave Roberts because I have felt that the Dodgers largely have planned out how and in what scenarios they want to use their relievers in advance – target this part of the lineup with this guy, this section with that guy, and so on. In 17 and 18, even when things did not go according to plan, it was at least apparent that the decisions being made were in alignment with how the team had previously done things.

That all stopped in game 5 of the LDS last year when Roberts decided to ride or die with Kershaw, Jansen and Kelly. And it applies here.

One of two things is true: Either the Dodgers are not pre-planning pitcher usage to the level I believed. If that’s the case, Dave Roberts is wholly unsuited to make these decisions on his own, and he is an enormous liability, or there is a plan, and Dave is ignoring it in the highest leverage situations.

Either of these is unacceptable.

I can only hope that the upside is that this absurdly bad decisionmaking did not cost the team a game, and so perhaps provides an opportunity for Andrew Friedman to call Dave and say something along the lines of ‘WHAT THE HELL??’.

Dave is so wonderful at so many aspects of his job, most of which are frankly far more important than game tactical decisionmaking during the regular season. I do not know if it is pride, if it is stubbornness, or what it is that is driving us to be in situations where these kinds of inexplicable decisions are being made, but it has to stop. Either the Dodgers need to plan this stuff out the way other analytic organizations do (and as I thought previously), and put someone in the dugout to help Dave stay on that plan, or they need to move on.

The pitching decisions in this game amounted to self-sabotage to an absurd degree, and Dave was foiled only by the incredible quality of his own roster, Cody Bellinger, and a decision even worse than his own: Eric Hosmer’s contract.”

I’ve brought this up before, but I think one of the more laughable criticisms of Roberts and Friedman that the anti-AF partisans used to consistently bring up was the accusation that Roberts was some sort of AF puppet, that the analytics guys with pocket protectors would hand Roberts instructions on what to do with the bullpen in certain situations.

Last night – and game 5 last year – prove something different, and actually quite the opposite. Roberts is a player’s manager, and makes decisions based on sentiment.

When making in-game baseball tactical decisions there is a type of tripartite separation of decision making powers. You have the sometimes conflicting influences of analytics, which is purely rational and based on historical outcomes to predict future outcomes, and then you have intuition, which relies on personal experience and is more of a real time assessment. I think both are needed to be a successful in-game manager.

One example is the Rich Hill playoff game from a few years ago when he was yanked in the 7th while pitching a shutout. Yes, the game plan, based on data and most likely outcomes, was that a pitcher tends to suffer when facing an opposing lineup the third time through the order, so pulling Hill was just according to plan, and statistically was the smart move. Eyeballs and intuition, however, could have told Roberts that Hill had better than normal bite on his curveball, had better than normal command of his pitches, and still had some sequencing options to keep the hitters off balance. In this case, intuition should have overruled historical outcomes based on real time information and Hill should’ve been given the opportunity to pitch.

The third decision making component is sentiment. Roberts is loyal to his players. He is prone to going with the guys who have been the face and identity of the team for a long time. People here in this forum do it, too. We want the Dodgers to re-sign Justin Turner so he can finish his career as a Dodger. There were some here who wanted the Dodgers to hire Chase Utley as a coach – just because.

It is managing with the heart, and it is the most prone to gross errors in judgement. Roberts using Kershaw as he did in game five last year was a perfect example of this, and it was dumb, dumb, dumb.

Sticking with Kenley in the closer role – just because – is an example of managing based on sentiment, and there are still some good reasons for doing so on occasion just to manage team psychology and buttress the confidence of key players, but baseball is fundamentally merciless.

Then again, it could be Kenley was a decent move if you want to save McGee for game three and a 6-3 lead was relatively lower leverage. Who knows.

…

I wasn’t really that impressed with Kershaw, either. He had a couple of pitches that were thrown hard, but he lacked command, and his velocity was consistently in and around 90 and there were lots of pitches I thought were left out over the plate and were hittable. I think, at this stage, even with Driveline, he will have glimpses of the old Kershaw, but he will more and more have more games like last night.

E-Mail From Houston Mitchell:

Hi, and welcome to another edition of Dodgers Dugout. My name is Houston Mitchell, and it seemed like Game 1 ended only minutes before Game 2 began.

Some random thoughts:

—I think (hope) we have seen the last of Kenley Jansen pitching in the ninth inning with the game on the line this postseason.

—And Joe Kelly wasn’t exactly awe-inspiring out there.

—Why didn’t the Dodgers bring in Adam Kolarek, Victor Gonzalez or Jake McGee to face the left-handed hitting Eric Hosmer in the bottom of the ninth? Because of the three-batter minimum. Hosmer was the third batter Kelly faced.

—I’m making an appointment with my doctor today to strengthen my blood pressure medication and see if I can buy or rent a defibrillator.

—The resurgence on offense of Austin Barnes and AJ Pollock this season has been an overlooked reason for the Dodgers’ success.

—And look at all those balls in the dirt Barnes blocked in the ninth inning, preventing the tying run from scoring. That will get overlooked, but it was a huge part of the victory.

—Cody Bellinger is now 4 for 14 this postseason. That was an old-school Bellinger home run in the fourth, hitting it basically off one knee.

—Why is Max Muncy still hitting fourth? He still puts together quality at-bats, making the pitcher work and leading the team with 39 walks this season.

—You can really see the difference in the offensive approach by each team. The Padres are aggressive, frequently going after the first pitch, while the Dodgers try to work the count. The Padres do Clayton Kershaw a favor by doing that, because it allows him to pitch deeper into the game.

—It seemed like Padres batters walked up to the plate with an 0-1 count.

—I find it odd that Kershaw would agree to appear in a commercial where one of his pitches is hit so far that he needs to hop in a car to catch it.

—It seemed every throw from the Dodger infielders to first base was in the dirt.

—I would much rather see Pollock stay in the game rather than Joc Pederson hit for him. I don’t care who is pitching.

—Brusdar Graterol, maybe with rookie nerves, gets called for a balk on his first pitch for not coming to a stop before his delivery. Then, he could have been called for a balk on the very next pitch.

—That was an amazing, amazing catch by Bellinger. You can watch it here.

—Manny Machado getting mad at Graterol for showing some emotion on the field? The same Machado who is the ultimate hot dog? I mean, the jokes write themselves there.

—Graterol and Machado were chirping at each other after Machado’s at bat in the eighth. Something to keep an eye on the rest of this series.

—And then Graterol, after all that emotion, set the Padres down in order in the eighth. Impressive.

—The Dodgers never play little ball? That double steal in the seventh inning was great, and led to two important runs.

—Mike Clevinger has been declared medically unfit to pitch in the rest of the NLDS, so the Padres were allowed to replace him on the roster with right-handed pitcher Dan Altavilla. If Padres advance to the NLCS, Clevinger would be ineligible for that series as well. Altavilla pitched the eighth inning for the Padres in Game 2.

—The fake crowd noise didn’t drown out the FS1 announcers as badly as it did in Game 1.

—There have been 18 home runs hit in the three games of the Astros-A’s series at Dodger Stadium so far. In the two games in cavernous Globe Life Field, three.

—John Smoltz seems to like the Dodgers more this year than in previous years.

—Near heart attack aside, that was a great baseball game to watch.

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Postseason records

I’m not a huge fan of postseason records, since there are so many more playoff rounds than in the past. But a lot of you are and have requested some Dodgers postseason records, so here they are, through Wednesday’s game.

Games played

Justin Turner, 58

Yasiel Puig, 58

Andre Ethier, 51

Joc Pederson, 50

Bill Russell, 49

Hits

Justin Turner, 63

Steve Garvey, 63

Bill Russell, 57

Yasiel Puig, 51

Pee Wee Reese, 46

Doubles

Justin Turner, 13

Carl Furillo, 9

Joc Pederson, 8

Duke Snider, 8

Ron Cey, 7

Jackie Robinson, 7

Triples

Steve Garvey, 3

Davey Lopes, 3

Yasiel Puig, 3

Bill Russell, 3

Home Runs

Duke Snider, 11

Steve Garvey, 10

Justin Turner, 9

Adrian Gonzalez, 7

Joc Pederson, 7

RBIs

Duke Snider, 36

Justin Turner, 27

Ron Cey, 24

Yasiel Puig, 23

Steve Garvey, 22

Davey Lopes, 22

Batting average (minimum 30 plate appearances)

David Freese, .400

Manny Ramirez, .386

A.J. Ellis, .365

Hanley Ramirez, .356

James Loney, .349

Steve Garvey, .346

Charlie Neal, .323

Billy Cox, .302

Ron Fairly, .300

Mickey Hatcher, .300

Ronnie Belliard, .300

We’ll do pitchers tomorrow.

Ask our Dodgers reporters

Have a Dodgers-related question you would like answered immediately? Go here and leave a comment, and one of our Dodgers expert reporters will answer as soon as possible. Or, you can always email me and ask, though titling a section “Ask Houston Mitchell” seemed a little narcissistic, even for me.

Padres-Dodgers schedule

Here’s the NLDS schedule. The Dodgers will be the home team for Games 1, 2 and 5. All times are Pacific.

Game 1: Dodgers 5, San Diego 1

Game 2: Dodgers 6, San Diego 5

Game 3: Tonight, 6 p.m., Dodgers (TBD) vs. San Diego (Adam Morejon**), MLB Network

Game 4*: Friday, 6 p.m., Dodgers (TBD) vs. San Diego (TBD), FS1

Game 5*: Saturday, 5 p.m., Dodgers (TBD) vs. San Diego (TBD), FS1

*-If necessary

**-left-hander

To check and see if you get MLB Network where you live, click here.

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In case you missed it

Dylan Hernández: Did Cody Bellinger make greatest Dodgers catch? Only time will tell

Dodgers showed their win in Game 2 of NLDS was built on smarts and riches

Walker Buehler lauds Dodgers bullpen rather than explain his command issues

Padres reliever Ryan Weathers, 20, goes from Class A to first-class debut against Dodgers

And finally

Justin Turner hits a walkoff three-run homer in Game 2 of the 2017 NLCS. Watch it here.

Until next time…

I like the idea of Floro then Julio tonight then May in game 4. I’d save Gonsolin for game 5 to back up Buehler. I don’t care what Jansen’s numbers were this year. Right now he’s throwing an 86-87 cutter that doesn’t cut and he has no idea where it’s going. I feel bad for Kenley. He’s been a great closer and a great team mate but he can’t pitch ANY meaningful innings right now if we want to win a championship

There was a good article about Kenley and Roberts by Pedro Moura (who I think is great) in The Athletic. Here is one particular comment on the article (the quality of commentary on that webzine can be quite good):

“The decisionmaking process for relief pitching in this game was absolutely mind-boggling. Starting from when Treinen left the game, Roberts more or less used the least-reliable remaining members of his bullpen.

Graterol’s got an amazing arm and will probably be a good contributor someday, but he currently doesn’t strike anyone out and has never been used in high leverage – and how he’s facing Fernando Tatis Jr in a 1 run game with a runner in scoring position?!?

Jansen’s been shaky and is of concern, and mysteriously recorded 2 outs yesterday in a relatively meaningless scenario. Kelly’s barely pitched all year.

The best 5 relievers on this team all year were McGee, Kolarek, Ferguson, Treinen and Gonzalez. One of those guys is gone to Tommy John surgery. Of the remaining 4, 2 pitched yesterday. One of those guys appeared today anyway. Somehow Kolarek and McGee, who have been fantastic against guys from both sides of the plate, haven’t thrown a pitch in this series. I understand that they are left handed, but they have acquitted themselves well against right handed hitters this year and McGee in particular has been, by far, the most dominant member of the Dodger bullpen.

It is inexplicable that these guys are being used this way. It simply does not make any sense at all, and is completely inconsistent with how they were used in the regular season.

Even Baez and Floro, who are not exactly known for their reliability, would have been better choices than any of the 3 pitchers who pitched after Treinen left this game.

The only saving grace is that due to pitch counts and usage, the Dodgers will more or less be forced to use the better members of their bullpen as Jansen will be unavailable after throwing 30 pitches, and Kelly and Graterol’s availability for back to backs is not established. But what an incredible unforced error this entire game nearly was.

I’ve long been a defender of Dave Roberts because I have felt that the Dodgers largely have planned out how and in what scenarios they want to use their relievers in advance – target this part of the lineup with this guy, this section with that guy, and so on. In 17 and 18, even when things did not go according to plan, it was at least apparent that the decisions being made were in alignment with how the team had previously done things.

That all stopped in game 5 of the LDS last year when Roberts decided to ride or die with Kershaw, Jansen and Kelly. And it applies here.

One of two things is true: Either the Dodgers are not pre-planning pitcher usage to the level I believed. If that’s the case, Dave Roberts is wholly unsuited to make these decisions on his own, and he is an enormous liability, or there is a plan, and Dave is ignoring it in the highest leverage situations.

Either of these is unacceptable.

I can only hope that the upside is that this absurdly bad decisionmaking did not cost the team a game, and so perhaps provides an opportunity for Andrew Friedman to call Dave and say something along the lines of ‘WHAT THE HELL??’.

Dave is so wonderful at so many aspects of his job, most of which are frankly far more important than game tactical decisionmaking during the regular season. I do not know if it is pride, if it is stubbornness, or what it is that is driving us to be in situations where these kinds of inexplicable decisions are being made, but it has to stop. Either the Dodgers need to plan this stuff out the way other analytic organizations do (and as I thought previously), and put someone in the dugout to help Dave stay on that plan, or they need to move on.

The pitching decisions in this game amounted to self-sabotage to an absurd degree, and Dave was foiled only by the incredible quality of his own roster, Cody Bellinger, and a decision even worse than his own: Eric Hosmer’s contract.”

I’ve brought this up before, but I think one of the more laughable criticisms of Roberts and Friedman that the anti-AF partisans used to consistently bring up was the accusation that Roberts was some sort of AF puppet, that the analytics guys with pocket protectors would hand Roberts instructions on what to do with the bullpen in certain situations.

Last night – and game 5 last year – prove something different, and actually quite the opposite. Roberts is a player’s manager, and makes decisions based on sentiment.

When making in-game baseball tactical decisions there is a type of tripartite separation of decision making powers. You have the sometimes conflicting influences of analytics, which is purely rational and based on historical outcomes to predict future outcomes, and then you have intuition, which relies on personal experience and is more of a real time assessment. I think both are needed to be a successful in-game manager.

One example is the Rich Hill playoff game from a few years ago when he was yanked in the 7th while pitching a shutout. Yes, the game plan, based on data and most likely outcomes, was that a pitcher tends to suffer when facing an opposing lineup the third time through the order, so pulling Hill was just according to plan, and statistically was the smart move. Eyeballs and intuition, however, could have told Roberts that Hill had better than normal bite on his curveball, had better than normal command of his pitches, and still had some sequencing options to keep the hitters off balance. In this case, intuition should have overruled historical outcomes based on real time information and Hill should’ve been given the opportunity to pitch.

The third decision making component is sentiment. Roberts is loyal to his players. He is prone to going with the guys who have been the face and identity of the team for a long time. People here in this forum do it, too. We want the Dodgers to re-sign Justin Turner so he can finish his career as a Dodger. There were some here who wanted the Dodgers to hire Chase Utley as a coach – just because.

It is managing with the heart, and it is the most prone to gross errors in judgement. Roberts using Kershaw as he did in game five last year was a perfect example of this, and it was dumb, dumb, dumb.

Sticking with Kenley in the closer role – just because – is an example of managing based on sentiment, and there are still some good reasons for doing so on occasion just to manage team psychology and buttress the confidence of key players, but baseball is fundamentally merciless.

Then again, it could be Kenley was a decent move if you want to save McGee for game three and a 6-3 lead was relatively lower leverage. Who knows.

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I wasn’t really that impressed with Kershaw, either. He had a couple of pitches that were thrown hard, but he lacked command, and his velocity was consistently in and around 90 and there were lots of pitches I thought were left out over the plate and were hittable. I think, at this stage, even with Driveline, he will have glimpses of the old Kershaw, but he will more and more have more games like last night.

I would start Gonsolin tonight and Barnes is the DH, not Pederson.

If anyone else was manager Kenley would have already lost the closer role. Use him in thd 6th, take the pressure off and if he proves he can get outs then move him up. I think Graterol is the obvious closer of the future and the future could be forced upon him. May as closer? Is he prepared for that?

I would try to sign Seager but you can’t sign all of your big name talent when your farm system is designed to replace them. As much as I like Bellinger he isn’t a pure hitter, he’s a violent swinger trying to make contact to hit homeruns. That is very prone to slumps, strikeouts and low on base %.

He hasn’t proven to me that he is a perennial hitter, not like Seager, Turner or Mookie.

Don’t get me wrong, he is a good player and I like him, but if someone has to go unsigned it should, IMO, be Belli.

Barnes was huge last night, not just for his offense, but also behind the plate handling all of Kelly’s pitches in the dirt.

Unbelievable, but that’s why you watch.

In postseasons past we lose that game….2020 may be the year folks.

Buckle up, grab a frosty beverage or two, pet your dog, tell your kids you love em, and enjoy the ride….

Ill be at Globe Life for game 1 of the WS. Hate you gotta buy a 4 pack….

Think Blue!