The Los Angeles Dodgers defeated the Toronto Blue Jays to win their second straight championship, and the Dodgers did it while rallying from a 3-1 deficit in Game 7 of the World Series. Dodgers manager Dave Roberts pushed all the right buttons in the comeback and explained his old-school approach that worked to perfection during an appearance on the Dan Patrick Show
“In the postseason, it's not about the numbers; you've got to trust your players. And my job is to know the player. It's not to know statistics. I do believe to win 11, 13 games in October, you've got to trust your players, know your players, and that's what we did.”
When the Dodgers trailed 3-2 in the top of the ninth inning, there were some questions about whether Roberts would pinch-hit for Miguel Rojas. Instead, Roberts chose to trust his player, and Rojas clobbered a home run off Blue Jays closer Jeff Hoffman to tie the game. That home run allowed the Dodgers to complete a rally.
Roberts chose to go with all four of his starters from the World Series, and MVP Yoshinobu Yamamoto closed the game out with 2 2/3 innings of shutout baseball, just a day after pitching six innings in Game 6. Despite some scary situations, including the bases loaded with one out in the bottom of the ninth, the Dodgers survived. Roberts explained his decision-making regarding player movement and how he ran it all, contrasting gut feeling and analytics.
“It's eye-test, it's gut. People can't get off the analytics for some reason. These are people who are just stuck in their ways and you're never going to change them,” Roberts added.
Roberts concluded that it's all about trusting players to come through in big moments. While this World Series title was slightly different from last season, it was still a similar approach for Roberts, who guided his team through adversity and to their second straight championship. Although the analytics would tell Roberts to pinch-hit for a player like Rojas, leaving him in to hit turned out to be the right decision, and it set the Dodgers on the path to another title.
