Dodgers News: Analysts Debate Whether Dave Roberts is to Blame for Early Exit
The Dodgers were swept out of the postseason by the Arizona Diamondbacks, and now they will enter into an offseason with more questions than answers. But right now, there is a lot of blame pie to hand out by people all over the industry.
MLB Network analyst Brian Kenny believes that the Dodgers loss in the NLDS this season goes on the shoulders of manager Dave Roberts.
“I thought Dave Roberts did his worst managing job last night. Worst I’ve seen in years. There’s a lot of failure to go around, but there are certain things you can control. And when you are eliminated from your postseason without using your best pitchers, that is under your control, that is under your manager’s control.”
Kenny is talking about the decision of Roberts to leave veteran pitcher Lance Lynn in the game a little too long. Lynn gave up four home runs in the third inning, which ended up burying the Dodgers in the game.
But Kenny argues that Roberts should have pulled him after the second home run, or at the very least after the third one. It’s a fair argument, and the move by Roberts was part of a few questionable choices in Game 3.
But Roberts is hardly to blame for the Dodgers' problems in this series. If anything, he did a great job to help keep them alive throughout.
He wasn’t out there swinging the bats, and he certainly didn’t put his star players in a position to go a combined 1-21 in the three games. So, I can agree to disagree with Kenny here.
But Kenny wasn’t the only one who saw things his way, as fellow analyst Rob Parker seemed to agree with him on Roberts.
“Terrible job, I’m sorry. I’m so tired of all the excuses. BK, this is what I’ll ask you. This is what I hear. ‘Oh, well it’s not fair. He doesn’t hit, he doesn’t pitch.’ Well when they win World Series’ a manager gets credit and he didn’t hit or pitch in those situations. You can’t keep winning 100 games and lose the first time you’re in the playoffs. The divisional round, this is now two years in a row where they’ve gotten knocked out. It cannot continue to happen.”
None of the three pitchers that started games for LA in the series could go past the third inning, which was another huge problem. Entering the series, people wondered how the Dodgers pitching would hold up, but nobody saw it being this poor.
The year that has felt so unexpected ended in such a defeating way. But then again, Dodgers fans have become used to disaster striking come playoff time in recent years.
