Dave Roberts Made All The Wrong Moves In WS Game 4

The World Series Game 5 Thread is already up so I won't upset that. I just have to post this vitriol before first pitch tonight, which will obviously be another Kershaw postseason meltdown disaster--but more on that later.

World Series Game 4 was entirely winnable if Dave Roberts hadn't made all those boneheaded pitching decisions.

Julio Urias should not have come out in the fifth inning, one out short of qualifying for the win. He had 9 Ks through 14 outs, including two Ks following the Huter Renfroe HR that made it 3-2 LA. We would go on to score in the top of the sixth and extend it to a 4-2 lead, but it didn't matter becuase now we're left to our bullpen decisions.

Blake Treinen was a bad choice to relieve Urias. Treinen gets the third out in the fifth, but then comes back in the sixth to shit the bed, allowing two on with none out. After getting Austin Meadows to strikeout, Roberts inexplicably goes to the unreliable Pedro Baez, who singlehandedly breathes life into the Rays with a meatball that Brandon Lowe deposits for a go-ahead three run HR.

Again, the Dodgers bats try to dig Roberts out of his hole, wth Joc Pederson's two-out, two-RBI single that would have been a longer rally had Cody Bellinger not run us out of the inning by getting tagged at third.

Baez now should be yanked out of there with a harpoon. But Roberts inexplicably leaves Baez in for another inning--only so he can give up ANOTHER home run to Kevin Kiermaier, tying the game.

We take the lead in the eighth inning again 7-6 on a Corey Seager single to left, scoring Chris Taylor. Roberts goes to Adam Kolarek who walks Ji-Man Chio and gets two outs, and then Roberts goes to Brusdar Graterol, who escapes the inning two batters later. Graterol is in, he's dealing 100mph fireballs.

And Roberts caps it all, by bringing in Kenley Jansen to blow the game for us, plain and simple. Not that Jansen's troubles throughout this postseason alone should have made him a radioactive isotope for this situation, not to be touched with a ten-foot pole. When he gave up the walkoff Brett Phillips single to center, it was all over. We handed this 8-7 win to the Rays on a fucking platter, a platter filled with the corpulent excesses and failures of Baez and Jansen.

And Roberts filled that platter, himself.

On top of all this, Jansen didn't even back up the play after the hit to center. It may not have mattered in the final assessment. But I'm so done with this guy. All postseason, it's been about him him him. He does not talk about wanting to support the team. He wants to talk about his own confidence in himself, his own abilities. And by not even doing his secondary job of backing up the play, let alone failing at his primary job of closing the door on the Rays--it showed me what a selfish bastard Kenley Jansen really is. His postgame remarks, in which he underlined how he broke Kiermaier's bat (which was still a single), and Phillips' hit was a fluke--NO, KENLEY. YOU LOST THE GODDAMN GAME, AND LET DOWN YOUR ENTIRE TEAM.

I'm done with Kenley.

I know I posted a valentine to Roberts after the NLCS, but this one pissed me off so much. Roberts' postgame remarks second-guessing his decisions were all about feeling and gut decisions. All of these gut decisions were wrong. And they have cost us dearly.

The other Sons were talking about how this was the multiple-batters-thrown-out-at-home stupidity in our playoff series loss to the Mets. Damn skippy. Now, the Rays have all the momentum. We've given it to them. Kershaw's impending failure tonight, coupled with the redemption of Tyler Glasnow after a poor Game 1 start, will be the next nail in the 2020 Dodgers' coffin. We don't have a starter for Game 6. We're doomed.

You don't recover from gut punches like this. Clearly, Kenley Jansen isn't even trying to recover. And neither will we.