Dave Roberts kept the Dodgers train on track and returned to the World Series

LOS ANGELES – As the night progressed and another needle was threaded, Dave Roberts counted the outs. If the Los Angeles Dodgers were to celebrate their return to the World Series on Friday night, it would come in another bullpen game. The man who was once mocked by a sitting president entered this month knowing that his perception would depend largely on what happened after he raised his right or left arm to the sky.

To complete the fall of the New York Mets, Roberts would have to do a lot.

By the time he made his final play, using Blake Treinen for his longest outing in 36 months to get the final six outs, all he could do was count. He stared at the scoreboard as Treinen's pitch count rose in the ninth inning. This, Roberts later said, was the last card he had to play. A big lead did little to ease the tension that had been building for months. Another early playoff exit for these Dodgers would have meant another failure. So Roberts stood on his toes as he waited for the finale. When it came, a harmless groundout that Chris Taylor scooped and threw to first base, Roberts raised his arms in triumph.

Roberts and the Dodgers return to the World Series. They needed seven pitchers to earn a 10-5 win Friday night. Eleven days earlier, Roberts had used eight pitchers to keep the Dodgers' season alive. They delivered a shutout. Once again, in a season that had several entire pitching staffs sidelined by injuries and tested even the Dodgers' impenetrable strength, Roberts had kept them on track.

Dave Roberts won over the players by understanding them: “He runs this club based on the guys in this room. He doesn't do it based on a spreadsheet.” (Harry How/Getty Images)

The team celebrated a pennant in its home clubhouse at Dodger Stadium for the first time in that glittering era. For the third time in less than a month, they turned this room into a bacchanal. Kiké Hernández pursued president of baseball operations Andrew Friedman to find more beer. Gavin Lux bubbly chased National League Championship Series MVP Tommy Edman. Roberts found his $700 million superstar and doused Shohei Ohtani with two bottles of champagne at once. When Ohtani tried to return the favor, Roberts sucked it up.

The Dodgers, who were on the verge of a breakthrough 11 days ago and in recent months, are still four wins away from the New York Yankees to win a championship.

“Imagine,” Roberts said with a grin.

With a cigar in his mouth and smoke billowing into the night, Roberts entered the rarefied air. It's been four years since Roberts and the Dodgers last celebrated a pennant. Corey Seager, Cody Bellinger and Justin Turner were still there, core stalwarts who won pennants in 2017 and 2018. The number 5 jersey now belongs to Freddie Freeman. It's Shohei Ohtani fighting for the MVP. The Dodgers faltered in the NLCS in 2021 and were unable to repeat their 2020 magic. They haven't even made it there the last two seasons, falling in the NLDS to opponents they defeated in the regular season.

“Shit, we just won the championship four years ago,” Roberts reflected The athlete on Sunday afternoon. “It doesn’t feel like it.”

Roberts admitted this month that he feels like he can handle the job this offseason. That's the nature of the cast.

“Every team in baseball is trying to beat us because of the nature of the sport,” said club president Stan Kasten. “And everyone should weigh us down. That's the gravity that it will sink. What we’ve done is defy gravity.”

Now Roberts has led his team to the finals in October. For nine years, he led the Dodgers to more regular-season wins than any other manager at any time. And now he is one of only six managers since the postseason that went beyond the World Series (1969) to win four pennants with a club, joining Earl Weaver, Sparky Anderson, Bobby Cox, Joe Torre and Tommy Lasorda.

Roberts laughed at the company.

“It feels like that’s part of the equation, being back on that stage,” Roberts said before dawn. “In this moment where I can kind of appreciate the company that I'm in and that I've now become a part of, it's actually quite emotional to be honest.”

The championship ring he owns was in the middle of an artificial bubble. That in itself was bittersweet, Roberts admitted.

“I know we have a championship ahead of us,” Roberts said. “There is still a certain gap. I want this parade. I just feel like we've had teams in the past, I've grown and this team is unique. I think it's battle tested. For this ballclub and for this city, I really want to get it done this year.”

Hits continued for the Dodgers all summer long. Twelve different pitchers have had at least one stint on the injured list this season. Yoshinobu Yamamoto, on whom the Dodgers spent $375 million and made him the richest pitcher in baseball history, missed several months with a shoulder injury. Mookie Betts missed months with a broken hand. Freddie Freeman missed time due to his youngest son's illness before playing with a broken finger and a severe right ankle sprain that ruled him out for the decisive pennant entirely. The training room has become a way station, with several Dodgers limping there to get to that point.

One of the potential turning points came in September, when Roberts called an impromptu meeting. The Dodgers had seen their control of the division begin to slip. They had entered another stretch of mediocre baseball, more common this summer than any other in their recent, dominant history. Tyler Glasnow, the club's biggest signing this winter, is officially out for the season. Standout rookie Gavin Stone was also close.

Roberts spoke. He reassured her. He stopped the train on the tracks.

“At one point we felt like we were down as a team,” Teoscar Hernández said this week. “And one meeting changed everything.”

“I think there were times during the year where we were a little slow because of some of our injuries,” Friedman said. “And I think Doc did a great job of leaning into that and pumping some enthusiasm and optimism into the group. It happened quickly. They rinsed it quickly. And came out focused the next day.”

“(He) doesn’t back down when times get tough — and we’ve had a lot of tough times,” Kasten said.

The Dodgers rallied. They won the division the next week, holding off the same San Diego Padres club they had rallied from a 2-1 deficit against just two weeks later in the NLDS.

“Doc – the work he does definitely doesn’t get enough credit,” Max Muncy said. “He runs this club based on the guys in this room. He doesn't do it from a spreadsheet. He doesn't do it because of what anyone tells him. He goes around and has conversations with everyone. He knows how pitchers feel. He knows how the position players feel. … Doc can do it and he never makes it public. He’s doing a great job.”

A group of superstars and seasoned veterans valued valuable time. They chartered separate buses to San Diego and separate flights to and from New York for the Division Series. They removed all distractions and came together during the bye week.

“Every team can spend so much time together, but not everyone is intentional about the time,” Mookie Betts said. “I think Doc does a really good job of getting us to be intentional about the time we spend together. … Real, quality time is different than just being in the cage. We sit in the cage and talk about each other's families or beatings, whatever it is. It’s really a nice time we can spend together.”

If the Dodgers wanted to survive against the Mets, they reasoned, the game would go long. Their initial pitch was shaky. Their bullpen, which had shut out the Padres, had suffered a blow: Alex Vesia, their most reliable left-hander, suffered an intercostal injury in the series' deciding game. They would only have Yamamoto available to pitch once. This forced creativity. In Game 2, that meant they didn't have to pressure any of their top relievers to maintain an early one-run deficit there, even as the lineup staged a comeback. When Jack Flaherty struggled in Game 5, Roberts had to overcome a two-run deficit.

In that regard, Roberts admitted this week, he has evolved. He's an adult. After suffering an early deficit in Game 5, he traded for Brent Honeywell, a waiver-eligible who has battled injuries throughout his career and, at 29, has secured a spot in this struggling group. Honeywell pitched 4 2/3 innings that night — his most in a major league game — and demanded more. The message was simple: Honeywell said, “Save the Dawn.” The Dodgers' powerful backups would look forward to another potential decisive win in Game 6.

Roberts took Honeywell aside on Saturday, the Dodgers' practice day in Los Angeles. Their conversation was short.

“It’s hard to put into words,” Honeywell said of what Roberts meant to him. “Dave wants the best for all of us. … Not once did I question him.”

That plan allowed Roberts to count outs on Sunday, although it still required rookie Ben Casparius, who wasn't on the Dodgers' first postseason roster, to soak up four of them.

The Dodgers got help from a lineup that consistently found contributions. In years past, Roberts acknowledged, it would have been unthinkable to move Edman — a quick-witted, deadline-hired utility man who caught fire on this series — to the cleanup spot. The same goes for Will Smith's move to eighth place in the rankings. He would have found a way to get Freeman back into the lineup despite his obvious issues with his ankle injury in October. Edman drove in the first four runs of the night to extend the Dodgers' early lead. Smith, who had five hits in his first 36 postseason at-bats, hit a two-run home run to provide more breathing room.

“Honestly, it’s about treating every man equally, being honest and building trust,” Roberts said. “I think you can ask everyone on this team: he trusts me, he trusts our staff. Once you have that, you can demand anything from them. That's it. This was the most stressful year, but also the most satisfying.”

In recent weeks, the Dodgers — led by their manager — have played as if they could defy gravity. To do it four more times means a championship. And this time a parade.

(Top photo by Dave Roberts: Sean M. Haffey / Getty Images)