In honor of Major League Baseball’s celebration of Roberto Clemente Day on Sunday, Dodgers manager Dave Roberts called a clubhouse meeting Sunday afternoon to discuss the Puerto Rican legend’s influence on the game.
Then, before the team dispersed roughly three hours before first pitch, the ninth-year manager offered a parting message to his players too.
Despite all the injuries to their pitching staff, all the questions about their roster depth, and the seemingly steep path they’re facing with October on the horizon, Roberts reminded the room that he still believes.
In the team’s ability to finish off a division title in the National League West.
In their chances of mounting a deep, albeit unconventional, potential run through the playoffs.
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And, as he later told reporters, in “the talent we have, the character we have.”
“[It] is plenty,” he declared, “to win the World Series.”
In their ensuing 9-2 win over the Atlanta Braves, the Dodgers dramatically delivered on everything Roberts was talking about.
Despite entering the night with losses in six of their previous nine games, and an NL West lead that had been trimmed to three games by the surging San Diego Padres, the Dodgers put all the pieces together in a momentum-shifting victory at Truist Park.
Walker Buehler battled through early command issues in a six-inning, two-run (one earned), five-strikeout start, marking one of the best performances of his trying season.
The lineup erased an early two-run deficit with the kind of fight that has been lacking at times in recent weeks, keyed by a couple RBI doubles from Shohei Ohtani.
Then, with the score tied 2-2 in the top of the ninth, the Dodgers’ other superstar bats erupted for a decisive seven-run rally — one that included RBI singles from Mookie Betts and Freddie Freeman after an intentional walk to Ohtani with two outs, then three-straight home runs from Teoscar Hernández, Tommy Edman and Max Muncy to put the game away.
It was a sigh of relief, a flurry of exaltation and a potential postseason statement, all wrapped up into one potentially season-defining display.
“I don’t want to say it was the biggest win of the year,” Roberts said, a fair assessment for a club that has bounced between hope and dread during an up-and-down campaign. “But it felt big. Just considering what we’ve been going through. Just to see everyone come together.”
Indeed, while the Dodgers hadn’t lost faith lately — they still have the second-best record in the majors (88-61) and hold a top-two seed in the NL playoff picture — their recent personnel losses had grated on the group’s psyche.
The club was already without Clayton Kershaw and Gavin Stone at the start of this road trip. Then they learned on Saturday that ace pitcher Tyler Glasnow will likely miss the rest of the season.
“I think that I would be naive to feel that all the stuff that we’ve gone through, certainly on the pitching side, doesn’t weigh on the players,” Roberts said. “It should.”
All the while, the Dodgers were stumbling on the field, too, allowing the Padres to trim what was a six-game division lead a week ago in half by the start of Sunday night’s contest.
“We haven’t been playing well for a week or so, a little bit longer,” Betts said. “It’s hard to keep confidence.”
Cue Roberts’ pregame address, in which the manager tried to reverse the recent frustrations he’d sensed from his roster.
“[He was] just putting confidence in us, that’s all,” Betts said. “Telling us we’re still good. Just instilling to keep fighting, keep fighting and things will turn eventually.”
That message seemed to immediately resonate on the field.
Buehler set the tone first, surviving a 31-pitch, two-run third inning to keep the Dodgers within striking distance early.
Then the lineup battled back, culminating in a ninth-inning rally against Braves closer Raisel Iglesias in which all seven runs scored with two outs (the most two-out, ninth-inning runs the Dodgers had scored in a game since 1996, according to ESPN).
“I just think there are certain times in a season that it’s a good reminder for the guys to know how good they are,” Roberts said. “But you also have to play like it too. So I give those guys credit. The coaches have done a great job preparing these guys. It was good to play an overall really good baseball game.”
Like several of their recent blowout losses, the Dodgers were in danger of spiraling in the third inning.
After a pair of walks from Buehler and a catcher’s interference call on Austin Barnes (who later left the game with a contusion to the same left big toe he broke last month) loaded the bases, Buehler got an 0-and-2 count against Braves first baseman Matt Olson — only to miss the zone with four straight pitches to walk in the night’s first run.
“I thought I made some pitches just like barely off, barely off, barely off,” Buehler said. “Was just trying not to give in and make the pitches that I wanted to make. “
A batter later, the Dodgers’ defense did him no favors.
While Buehler induced a slow grounder from Braves catcher Travis d’Arnaud, infielder Gavin Lux struggled to get the ball out of his glove on a relay play at second, failing to record any outs while another run crossed the plate.
“At some point, every guy on the field and on our team has been frustrated with the way I’ve thrown the ball,” Buehler, who entered the night with a 1-5 record and career-worst 5.95 ERA, said about the inning’s defensive miscues. “So that stuff happens. That’s baseball.”
And from then on, Buehler settled down and turned the page.
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Pitching with what he described as a playoff mindset — “For me, it kind of feels like [the playoffs] at this point,” he joked after the game, in a reference to his uncertain status on any potential postseason roster — the veteran October-tested right-hander tapped back into some of his past postseason form.
He ended the third inning without any more damage.
“It felt kind of like we minimized it in some way,” Buehler said. “Started creating a little bit of momentum after that.”
Then, he cruised through three more innings without encountering further stress, completing six innings for the first time since May.
“I think largely tonight, I felt the misses were kind of what I wanted to do,” Buehler said, downplaying his career-high five walks in a start he described as a “big step forward for me.”
“Maybe [I missed] just too much or too little or whatever,” Buehler added. “But it was kind of in the right lanes for me, at least mentally. That’s what you want, and that’s why we always talk about feel or command or whatever. It’s not necessarily throwing every pitch exactly where you want, but it’s doing the right things at the right times and kind of being able to dictate what the ball does I think is the biggest thing.”
After Ohtani’s two doubles tied the score and reliever Michael Kopech escaped a major jam in the eighth, the Dodgers’ slumping bats finally came to life in the ninth.
Will Smith led off the inning with a deep fly ball that bounced off the top of the tall brick wall in right-center, settling for a leadoff triple.
Two batters later, Braves manager Brian Snitker made a tricky decision: Intentionally walking the left-handed-hitting Ohtani to let Iglesias face Betts in a right-on-right matchup instead.
“I mean, I don’t blame them,” Betts said. “I wouldn’t pitch to him either.”
Alas, just as he did in a similar situation against the Angels earlier this month, Betts delivered a decisive hit, hammering a center-cut fastball through the infield for a go-ahead RBI single.
Freeman, the former Braves star, quickly added some insurance with a two-run single to left.
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From there, the Dodgers just kept on releasing their recent frustrations, hitting back-to-back-to-back home runs for the third time this month.
“This is just one game, and we got to turn the page and get ready for tomorrow,” Betts said. “But it lets us know we can do it … I think we’ve done a really good job in really staying confident and knowing that we can do it, keeping the pressure on until we do break through.”
That was the same sentiment Roberts voiced pregame; the same mindset the Dodgers will need to embrace to weather the injury-induced storm threatening to wreck their October.
“I think it says a lot about our team, the end of that game, and kind of not settling for a two-run lead or whatever and kind of pouring it on,” Buehler said. “I think it’s a really big win for us.”
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This story originally appeared in Los Angeles Times.