The Los Angeles Dodgers find themselves on the brink of elimination and are watching their World Series hopes come to an end.
As Bill Shakin of the L.A. Times details, pretty much all of the moves that manager Dave Roberts made in Game 3 came back to bite him in the patookus. From non-pitching changes to wasting bench players, nothing worked to help the Dodgers keep their short-lived lead.
Despite being down 3-0, the players and Roberts continue to say there is room for optimism. Roberts, famously, was part of the Red Sox team that came back from being down 3-0 to the New York Yankees in the 2004 ALCS. As Jim Alexander of the OC Register covers, Roberts doesn’t think he’ll turn to those stories to motivate his team now.
“Absolutely not,” he said with a laugh. “Then I’ll lose them. I don’t know if some of those guys even know I played. No, absolutely not.”
The team continues to say all the right things, that they believe in Game 4 starter Tyler Glasnow, and themselves.
“Everybody in the team is very confident in his ability and the stuff that’s coming out of his hand and doing his job,” (Tarik) Skubal said of Glasnow.
“I feel great about Glas,” utility man Kiké Hernández added. “He’s got some of the best stuff in the game. I feel like our pitchers have given us a chance every day to win a game, and we just haven’t hit. So we just got to hit.”
Kevin Baxter of the L.A. Times covers those quotes and more optimistic thoughts from the team here.
Another reason to maybe have some hope is that Shohei Ohtani and Will Smith, two players who have not been able to contribute much at all this postseason had their best nights at the plate so far. Ohtani got on base three times, and Smith had an RBI double that brought in the Dodgers’ only runs of the night.
Game 4 is at Dodgers Stadium Thursday evening, to be determined if it’s the last game there for a long time.
To end with a fun little nugget to maybe make you smile, Max Muncy has been named a finalist for the Gold Glove Award at third base, and Manny Machado has not. Chris Kirschner of The Athletic covers all those details here.