Dave Roberts, Blake Snell lose after 7th-inning collapse

It’s a tale as old as time: An All-Star left-handed starter for the Los Angeles Dodgers is dominating in a playoff start until it gets to the 7th inning. He throws a lot of pitches, maybe gets a little tired, and meanwhile Dave Roberts or Don Mattingly leaves him until disaster strikes.

Usually, that pitcher is Clayton Kershaw. Now that Kershaw has retired to focus on broadcasting a reclaiming the symbol of the rainbow, the burden of being Roberts’ victim has fallen on one-year San Francisco Giants sensation Blake Snell.

In the 7th inning of the Dodgers’ 6-2 loss to the Milwaukee Brewers, Snell was cruising along through six innings. After giving up a home run to Jackson Chourio on the first pitch of the game, Snell gave up only one more hit in the next six innings, retiring 14 Brewers in a row at one point. Then he walked Andrew Vaughn on seven pitches. Then, Jake Bauers started fouling pitches off.

Bauers fought off five two-strike pitches before going deep on Snell’s 11th pitch of the at-bat, giving the Brewers a 3-2 advantage.

That took Snell’s pitch count to 99. Though Snell is notorious for not going deep into games, Roberts chose to keep him in to face the left-handed Garrett Mitchell, even though a lefty had just taken Snell deep. It took only two more pitches for Roberts to regret his inaction.

It was immediately reminiscent of the 2019 Division Series between the Dodgers and Washington Nationals, when Kershaw came out of the bullpen and gave up back-to-back homers to Anthony Rendon and Juan Soto, the second another lefty-on-lefty matchup.

The common thread is that Roberts simply doesn’t trust his bullpen in October a lot of the time. He may have been right to, since relievers Rory Sasaki and Justin Wrobleski let two more runs score in the 8th and 9th innings. Last season, Roberts got through a rough start by Shohei Ohtani in Game 7 of the World Series by using four starting pitchers in relief, including Snell, with Wrobleski the only full-time reliever entering the game.

Snell had some control issues in his first playoff start, walking five Atlanta Braves in 3.2 innings, though he only gave up one run. With the Dodgers trailing 3-0 in the series, he and Roberts may not get a chance to redeem themselves before the 2027 season.

Note: Snell may be in his second season pitching for the Dodgers, but the Giants still had to pay him $17M this year thanks to a deferred signing bonus from his 2024 contract. Maybe that’s the reason he collapsed in the biggest moment. Simply getting a check from the 2026 Giants is enough to taint anyone in baseball with their 97-loss stink.