Jeers greeted manager Dave Roberts as he left the dugout to relieve Clayton Kershaw with two outs in the sixth inning of Game Five of the World Series the other day. The homegrown ace appeared to be having a grand outing, retiring the last eight batters and rolling with a relatively fresh arm off counts of 56 strikes on 85 pitches. He wasn’t taking any chances, though; he stuck to a plan that had nothing to do with the would-be Hall of Famer’s snakebitten postseason history and everything to do with advanced metrics. And so he proceeded to hand the ball and a two-run lead to his bullpen, confident that the final score would be to his liking.
Kershaw took the development in stride even as most of the 11,437 fans in Globe Life Field — who breathed Dodger Blue to turn the supposedly neutral Texas site and supposed road outing into a veritable homestand — did not. They wanted him to preserve the advantage. They wanted to be sure of the outcome, and not simply because the bizarre ending of Game Four underscored the absence of certainty in Major League Baseball. And, yes, they probably figured he had earned the opportunity to exorcise the demons that plagued him in playoffs past. As far as Roberts was concerned, though, he had absolutely nothing to prove. He had already done his job, and it was time for others to do theirs.
Which, as things turned out, was exactly what the Dodgers did. Three and a third innings of scoreless relief brought them victory and a chance to close out the World Series today. There’s cause to contend that they should have been crowned champions by now; the stats show them to be vastly superior to the Rays throughout the best-of-seven affair. And had they not committed a string of miscues that Roberts termed an “unperfect storm” to snatch defeat from the throes of triumph in Game Four, they may well be celebrating already.
The sport is what it is, however, and Roberts counters its fickle nature by playing the probabilities from a vantage point only his singular experience and focus can provide. And if the Dodgers are a win away from the title, it’s because he has rightly stuck to his guns. He knows that while the Rays are very, very good, his charges are better. He just has to keep putting them in position to succeed.
Anthony L. Cuaycong has been writing Courtside since BusinessWorld introduced a Sports section in 1994. He is a consultant on strategic planning, operations and Human Resources management, corporate communications, and business development.
