LOS ANGELES – As the night wore on and another needle was threaded, Dave Roberts counted down. If the Los Angeles Dodgers were to mark their return to the World Series on Friday night, it would happen in another bullpen game. The man once derided by a sitting president entered this month knowing that much of how he would be viewed would depend on what happened after he raised his right or left arm to the sky.

To complete the toppling of the New York Mets, Roberts would have to do it a lot.

Once he made his final move, bringing on Blake Treinen for his longest outing in 36 months to reach the final six outs, all he could do was count. He stared at the scoreboard as Treinen’s pitch count increased in the ninth inning. This, Roberts later said, was the last card he had to play. A big lead did little to ease the tension that had been building for months. Another early playoff exit for these Dodgers would have meant another failure. So Roberts stood on his toes as he waited for the final out. When it came, an innocent groundout that Chris Taylor scooped up and threw to first base, Roberts raised his arms in triumph.

Roberts and the Dodgers are heading back to the World Series. It took seven pitchers on Friday night to secure a 10-5 victory. Eleven days earlier, facing elimination and another offseason full of questions, reflection and perhaps reimagining after a billion-dollar offseason went bankrupt, Roberts deployed eight pitchers to keep the Dodgers’ season alive. They provided a shutout. Once again, in a season that saw several entire pitching staffs mired by injuries and even the Dodgers’ impenetrable depth tested, Roberts had kept them on the job.

Dave Roberts convinced players by understanding them: ‘He runs this club based on the guys in this room. He doesn’t do it through a spreadsheet.’ (Harry Hoe/Getty Images)

The team celebrated a pennant win for the first time in this sparkling era in the home clubhouse of Dodger Stadium. For the third time in less than a month, they turned this room into a bacchanal. Kiké Hernández chased president of baseball operations Andrew Friedman to find more beer. Gavin Lux chased National League Championship Series MVP Tommy Edman with bubbles. Roberts found his $700 million superstar and doused Shohei Ohtani with two bottles of sparkling wine in one go. When Ohtani wanted to return the favor, Roberts spoke up.

The Dodgers, who were on the brink of breaking point 11 days ago and in recent months, are four wins over the New York Yankees away from winning a championship.

“Go take a look,” Roberts said with a grin.

With a cigar in his mouth and smoke rising into the night, Roberts found himself in a thin air. Four years have passed since the last time Roberts and the Dodgers celebrated a pennant. Corey Seager, Cody Bellinger and Justin Turner were still there, core stalwarts who brought pennants in 2017 and 2018. That number 5 jersey now belongs to Freddie Freeman. It’s Shohei Ohtani vying for an MVP. The Dodgers regressed in the NLCS in 2021 and were unable to repeat their 2020 magic. They haven’t even made it the past two seasons, crashing out in the NLDS against opponents they defeated during the regular season.

“Hurry up, we just won the championship four years ago,” Roberts reflected The Athletics on Sunday afternoon. “It doesn’t feel that way.”

So, Roberts acknowledged this month, there was a sense he was doing a good job this postseason. That is the nature of the occupation.

“Every baseball team is trying to beat us because of the nature of the sport,” club president Stan Kasten said. “And everyone has to push us down. That’s gravity, that it will come down. What we have done is defy gravity.”

Now Roberts has taken his team into the final stages of October. For nine years, he led the Dodgers to more regular-season success than any manager from any era. And now he is one of only six managers since the postseason extended beyond the World Series (in 1969) to claim four pennants at one club, joining Earl Weaver, Sparky Anderson, Bobby Cox, Joe Torre and Tommy Lasorda.

Roberts laughed at the company.

“It feels like that’s part of it, to be on that stage again,” Roberts said before it sank in. it’s actually quite emotional to be completely honest.

The championship ring he owns came in the middle of an artificial bubble. That in itself is bittersweet, Roberts acknowledged.

“I know we have a championship in our pocket,” Roberts said. “There is still a certain emptiness. I want that parade. I just feel like we’ve had teams in the past, I’ve grown and this team is unique. I think it’s been put to the test. For this baseball club and for this city, I really want to finish it this year.”

The hits kept coming all summer long for the Dodgers. Twelve different pitchers have been on the injured list at least once this season. Yoshinobu Yamamoto, on whom the Dodgers spent $375 million and became the richest pitcher in baseball history, missed several months with a shoulder injury. Mookie Betts missed months with a broken hand. Freddie Freeman missed time due to his youngest son’s illness before playing through a broken finger and, last month, a badly sprained right ankle that left him out of the lineup entirely for the pennant. The training room has become a way station, with several Dodgers limping their way to reach this point.

One of the potential breaking points came in September, when Roberts called an impromptu meeting. The Dodgers had seen their hold on the division begin to fade. They had entered a new breed of mediocre baseball that was more common this summer than ever before in their recent, dominant history. Tyler Glasnow, the club’s top trade acquisition this winter, was officially out for the season. Standout rookie Gavin Stone would be, too.

Roberts spoke. He reassured them. He kept the train on the track.

“It was one time when we felt like we were in trouble as a team,” Teoscar Hernández said this week. “And one meeting changed everything.”

“I think there were times during the year where some of the injuries we had were a little deflating,” Friedman said. “And I think Doc has done a great job of getting ahead of that and pumping some enthusiasm and optimism into the group. It was fast. They flushed it quickly. And came out focused the next day.”

“(He) doesn’t let down when times get tough – and we’ve had a lot of tough times,” Kasten said.

The Dodgers rallied. They won the division the following week, holding off the same San Diego Padres club they would rally from a 2-1 deficit against just two weeks later in the NLDS.

“Doc – the work he does definitely doesn’t get enough credit,” said Max Muncy. “He runs this club based on the guys in this room. He doesn’t do it through a spreadsheet. He doesn’t do it based on what anyone tells him. He walks around and has conversations with everyone. He knows how pitchers feel. He knows how the position players feel. … Doc handles that and he never brings that out. He’s doing a great job.”

A group of superstars and seasoned veterans emphasized quality time. They chartered separate buses to San Diego for the Division Series and separate flights to and from New York. They removed distractions during the bye week and came together.

“Every team gets to spend so much time together, but not everyone is conscious about their time,” Mookie Betts said. “I think Doc has done a very good job of making us aware of the time we spend together. … Real quality time is different than just sitting in the cage. We sit in the cage and talk about each other’s families or talk about hitting, whatever it is. It’s really a nice time we can spend together.”

If the Dodgers survived against the Mets, they reasoned, it would be a long game. Their starting pitching was wobbly. Their bullpen that had shut down the Padres had taken a hit in the process: Alex Vesia, their most reliable left-hander, suffered an intercostal injury in the series clincher. They only had Yamamoto available to pitch once. That forced creativity. In Game 2, it meant not pushing any of their best relievers to maintain an early one-run deficit there, even as the lineup mounted a comeback. When Jack Flaherty struggled in Game 5, Roberts didn’t chase after trailing by two points.

In that sense, Roberts acknowledged this week, he has evolved. He has grown. Facing an early deficit in Game 5, he went to Brent Honeywell, a waiver claim who had struggled with injuries throughout his career and at age 29 was clinging to a spot among this battered group. Honeywell pitched 4 2/3 innings that night – his most in a big league game – and asked for more. The message was simple, Honeywell said: “Save the dawgs.” The Dodgers’ high-leverage relievers would rest for another potential game-changer in Game 6.

Roberts pulled Honeywell aside on Saturday, the Dodgers’ training day in Los Angeles. Their conversation was short.

“It’s hard to put into words,” Honeywell said of what Roberts has meant to him. “Dave wants the best for all of us. … I didn’t question him once.”

That plan allowed Roberts to count out Sunday, even though it still required rookie Ben Casparius, who didn’t make the Dodgers’ first postseason roster, to sniff four of them.

The Dodgers got help from a lineup that found contributions everywhere. Roberts acknowledged that in years past, it would have been unthinkable to move Edman — a deadline-day utilityman who was torched in the series — to the mop-up spot. The same goes for moving Will Smith to eighth in the order. He would have found a way to get Freeman back into the lineup despite his apparent issues with his injured ankle in October. Edman drove in the first four runs of the night to extend the Dodgers’ early lead. Smith, who had five hits over his first 36 postseason at-bats, hit a two-run homer to add more breathing room.

“Honestly, it’s trying to treat every guy the same and fairly and build trust,” Roberts said. “I think you can ask any guy on this team, they trust me, they trust our staff. If you have that, you can ask anything from them. That’s it. This has been the most difficult year, but also the most rewarding.”

In recent weeks, the Dodgers – led by their manager – have played like they can defy gravity. If you do that four more times, that means a championship. And this time a parade.

(Top photo by Dave Roberts: Sean M. Haffey / Getty Images)