Another postseason series, another chance for Ken Rosenthal to draw the ire of fans around the country. Baseball’s most famous bowtie had already gotten — not to mention plenty of neutral observers — for multiple columns he wrote in the aftermath of the San Diego Padres’ dustup with the Los Angeles Dodgers during the NLDS, casting San Diego stars like Fernando Tatis Jr. and Manny Machado as brash provocateurs while letting L.A.’s players, coaches and fans off scot-free (while Tatis Jr. was a “dancing peacock”, Mookie Betts as a “genius chasing perfection”). In the NLCS, he decided to just keep on digging himself a deeper hole, enraging a whole other fan base in the process.
If you thought Rosenthal’s previous spin was outrageous, just wait until you hear what he had to say as the Dodgers were closing in on a series-clinching win over the New York Mets in Game 6 on Sunday night.
Ken Rosenthal claims Dodgers ‘effectively conceded’ Games 2 and 5 of NLCS
No, that isn’t a misprint, nor is it taken out of context. Here’s the full quote from Rosenthal’s dugout report, which came with L.A. up 7-4 on New York in the bottom of the seventh inning.
“It took incredible discipline for [manager Dave] Roberts not to chase those victories in Game 2 and Game, and frankly it was not a great look — effectively conceding postsason games,” Rosenthal said. “But, should they hold on, the ends will justify the means. He had to manage this way because he was short-handed: short-handed with his rotation, short-handed in his bullpen.”
You can almost see the point that Rosenthal is trying to make here. The Dodgers have in fact been dealing with several injuries to their pitching staff, injuries which have forced Roberts to get creative throughout this postseason run — whether it’s using bullpen games or simply stretching pitchers beyond what the team might ordinarily be comfortable with. In Game 2, Roberts allowed righty Landon Knack to be tagged for five runs in the second inning, then used low-leverage options like Anthony Banda, Brent Honeywell and Edgardo Henriquez to mop up the rest of the game in a 7-3 loss. In Game 5, Roberts let a clearly-flagging Jack Flaherty give up a whopping eight runs over three innings of work rather than call upon his best bullpen arms to try and put out the fire and keep L.A. in the game.
It’s fine to point out the choices Roberts made in managing his pitching staff, and to give him credit for navigating his team to the doorstep of a World Series. Framing that as essentially “conceding” games — and thereby implying that the Mets played no part in what was a very entertaining series — is way beyond the pale, though. The Dodgers started Knack and Flaherty because they were the team’s best pitching options in each of those games, and New York’s offense came out and blasted them both. This wasn’t a game that was in the balance before Roberts waved the white flag; these were games the Mets grabbed by the throat, jumping out to early leads and forcing their opponents to make difficult choices.
Roberts shouldn’t bear the blame for Knack and Flaherty’s poor performances, but he also doesn’t need to be given credit for abandoning games that had already been lost; that’s what every manager would do in a seven-game series, especially with no days off between Games 3, 4 and 5. It’s yet more evidence that Rosenthal sees the Dodgers as baseball savants who can do no wrong, whose every move must be justified with the most charitable possible interpretation, and whose opponents are lucky to be in competition with them. We can only imagine what he’ll come up with for an encore in the World Series.
