Dodgers: Roberts Believes This Year’s Offense Has What it Takes to Avoid Prolonged Slumps
The Dodgers have been in the postseason 10 straight seasons, but they’ve only taken home the World Series title once in the first nine years. There are some extenuating circumstances, to be sure — we’re looking at you, Southeast Texas Cheaters — but in many years, the issue has simply been that the bats went cold at the worst possible time.
On Wednesday afternoon, L.A. manager Dave Roberts was asked about those offensive slumps from years past and how he thinks the 2022 version of the team is more equipped to avoid those.
“I think I’d say experience. I think that you saw it last night from Trea [Turner]. I thought he did a great job of controlling the strike zone. I thought Max [Muncy] did it. Will [Smith] has had postseason experience, and I think that you see that up and down the lineup. I think that Gavin [Lux] even getting his feet wet the last couple of years has shown that and continued to get better at that. …
“I just feel that the moment is not going to get too big for any of our guys. Every at-bat, every big situation there’s going to be points where you’ve got to take a tough pitch or shorten up to make a good swing or to fight a pitch off and not expand. I think the experience certainly helps that.”
Nearly everyone on the Dodgers’ 26-man roster has postseason experience, and 17 of them have a World Series ring. When you have a team that led baseball in scoring in the regular season and won 111 games, the more you can make the postseason feel like the regular season, the better. That’s what Roberts means when he talked about not letting the moment “get too big,” recognizing that all you need to do is win tonight, put up a good at-bat right now, make your pitch right here.
Of course, the numbers aren’t quite on Doc’s side so far this October, particularly in key run scoring moments.
The Dodger offense in run scoring situations:
Game 1: RISP 3-8, LOB 6
Game 2: RISP 0-8, LOB 10#Dodgers— Clint Pasillas (@realFRG) October 13, 2022
Roberts thinks all the postseason experience on his roster will help in that effort. Let’s hope he’s right. Eventually.
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At this point a one game slump is too many.
Thanks Dave, but a prolonged slump in the playoffs is only about 2 games long before you get to go on vacation. Or one more decision like having Barnes pinch hit again against Hader.