Over at the Los Angeles Times, columnist Bill Plaschke talked with Dodgers CEO Stan Kasten about L.A.'s season, their postseason collapse, and a variety of other topics. Eventually, the topic turned to Los Angeles manager Dave Roberts, the favorite whipping boy of people with jerky knees all over L.A.
Kasten's comments about Roberts aren't likely to satisfy those calling for Doc's head, but they do have the small benefit of being a hundred percent true.
“Everyone who is a sports fans think they could a) run a bar and b) be a manager, and it’s just not true,” he said. “It’s hard, man, it is hard. Every time they don’t win, they think of something we could have done better, and they may be right at various times ... [but] we’re talking about the [manager] that maybe right now has the greatest lifetime record ever?”
He continued by complimenting Roberts’ other duties such as clubhouse management and serving as a calm and charismatic public face of the team.
“By the way, this is a much harder job than Xs and O’s. ... There’s so much more to it, and Dave manages all of those things as well as anyone you’ve ever seen,” Kasten said.
Kasten acknowledges that Roberts isn't necessarily perfect, but his record really does speak for itself. And even if you believe managing in the postseason is a different skill from managing overall, Roberts is 45-36 in the postseason, too.
The Dodgers' loss to the Padres in the NLDS was a failure on the field. If L.A. goes 4-for-20 with runners in scoring position instead of 0-for-20 during that horrific stretch, they probably sweep the series. If they go 6-for-20, they sweep in three blowouts. Maybe Tyler Anderson should have gone another inning, but the Dodgers didn't lose Game 4 because they ran out of pitchers — they lost because the pitchers they brought in didn't get the job done. Was it embarrassing to have Yency Almonte miss the throw-a-pickoff sign so Alex Vesia came into the game in a 1-0 count? Sure, but when Jake Cronenworth got the big go-ahead hit, the count was 1-2, so it didn't actually have any impact on the results of the game.
It's good to see the knee-jerk reactions all over L.A. haven't reached the owners box.
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