LOS ANGELES – Los Angeles Dodgers manager Dave Roberts has finally figured out something none of his predecessors ever did. On Sunday night, after a dazzling performance from Jack Flaherty, the Dodgers capped their win against the New York Mets with a 33-inning scoreless streak, tying a record for the most in MLB history.

Yep, it’s only Game 1 of the National League Championship Series. Yes, there are more opportunities for this kind of thing because the playoffs last many more rounds than they used to, and yes, the previous team to hold the record – the 1966 Orioles – did so on the backs of mostly starting pitchers. . But that might make it all the more impressive.

We’re not talking about a streak that started when it was just a matter of getting guys cooking and getting some magic plays from legends like Brooks Robinson and Frank Robinson to seal the deal. This streak happened in the middle of elimination games and it happened to two handfuls of pitchers. The level of difficulty is clearly higher.

Also of note, the Dodgers set franchise records for biggest blowouts in postseason history while they were at it. On Wednesday, they set the record with an 8-0 victory over the Padres in an elimination game on the road. On Sunday, they broke the win with a 9-0 thrashing of a supposedly hot Mets team that had no idea what hit them.

“I thought you could clearly see that (Mets pitcher Kodai) Senga just didn’t have his A stuff tonight. The split was non-competitive. He didn’t use his sweeper. And then he just relied on the cutter, working behind the hitters and making guys walk,” Roberts explained after the game. “To take our walks and create stress…I thought we controlled a little bit tonight and got some big singles, whether we brought a guy up, brought him up and then got a hit. I thought we were very cocky all night. I thought the hitting coaches did a great job of putting together a game plan. And then the players were executed.”

In the bottom of the second inning, with Senga unable to hit the zone, Tommy Edman came to the plate with no outs after Gavin Lux walked. He bunted, sending Lux over, and on the next pitch Shohei Ohtani singled him to make it 3-0 – the kind of simple maneuver that some might question, but if it works it looks brilliant.

Later in the match it happened again and it seemed routine. Roberts plays small ball with two sacrifices in a game after just 10 all season.

“It’s just playoff baseball. I just think it’s a fact – the truth is the postseason is different than the regular season. It’s about going 30 yards and giving yourself — and part of that was giving Shohei a chance to get up,” Roberts said matter-of-factly. “It is the credit of Tommy and Kiké (Hernández) that the driving in those stages was enormous. And Gavin gets the bunt down, Tommy gets the bunt down, it’s just team baseball. If you can get someone into scoring position, it just adds a little more stress.”

The fact is that despite all these interior achievements, for a franchise like the Dodgers, the only thing that matters is the World Series championship. And even some of them don’t Real counts when you listen to some fans and experts.

Even if this team goes on to win the World Series – by giving the man named “Doc” two rings and tying him with former Dodgers manager and legendary character Tommy Lasorda and giving him two rings behind Walter Alston, who won four championships in both Brooklyn and Brooklyn. and LA, including managing Jackie Robinson in 1954 and 1955 – Roberts will never get the respect he truly deserves. And it’s hard to understand why.

First, he won during the year of the coronavirus pandemic in 2020. Say what you will about the shortened season: No one else won the World Series that season. The Dodgers also have one of the largest payrolls in MLB history, which provides useful cover for anyone who simply doesn’t want to give credit to the Japanese-born black American manager. As a reminder, Roberts was the first minority manager in Dodgers history, not even the first black.

It’s really impossible to live up to perhaps the best managerial decision in MLB history: Lasorda calling up a hobbled Kirk Gibson to hit in the bottom of the ninth to win Game 1 of the World Series in 1988 — but the manager’s legacy is not defined by singular lineup moves.

It doesn’t help that Roberts emerged at a time when the position in the game was being massively devalued, and the general level of public criticism through things like social media turned second-guessing into a much more elaborate art form. With all the advanced statistics and information-based operations for which data is widely available, many owners and people around the game felt that, in short, a lot of this is simpler than it seems.

“As manager of the Dodgers, there will always be pressure to win it all. Dave knows this,” Jerry Hairston Jr. said. Saturday. Hairston played for the Dodgers and is now a local broadcaster for the team on Spectrum SportsNet. “This year was his best management job yet. We have been plagued with injuries, especially on the pitching side, something the front office said we will look at this offseason. But with so many injuries. he led us to the best record (in MLB). The last two games of the Padres series were a microcosm of what he has done all season. He, his staff and the players know the job is not done yet. They are extremely focused.”

Whether it stemmed from a Game 3 loss to the Padres in the NLDS and immediately declaring the next game a bullpen game while his opposing skipper was more concerned about celebrating their victory after the win, Roberts is not just a baseball puppet. Yes, he has a loaded team. Yes, their front office is heavy on analytics. And yes, they seem to sleepwalk to division titles year after year in the fairly weak NL West. As far as institutional arrogance goes, the Dodgers are at the top. They can sign ‘anyone’ because they are rich and ‘anyone’ wants to play there. They can ‘repair’ any player that comes off the scrap heap. If you fail in their system, it’s your skill problem, not theirs.

But the truth is, many people thought beating the Padres was a win that would save jobs. Had they been ousted by a division foe in the playoffs for the third year in a row, it would have been completely understandable if the team felt like they were just not making any progress with the UCLA graduate at the helm. But they didn’t lose. And Roberts managed to move circles around Padres manager Mike Shildt (see the winless streak). Now the Mets are so messed up that guys are making ridiculous idiotic plays on the base paths out of desperation.

“I thought he was surgical in Game 4 and Game 5 (against the Padres). I thought he had the right feel and the right heart rate to know when to make a move, who to go to, and even with that (pitcher Alex) Vesia had pain in the oblique and he didn’t miss a beat,” said Dodgers president of baseball. Operations Andrew Friedman told the Orange County Register on October 12. “We have such a fan base and we love that. Expectations are super high. We love that too.

‘And if we don’t succeed, there will be a lot of blame and a lot of disappointed people. We’d much rather have that than people not caring. The theater of October baseball is entirely results-oriented. If you have a good outcome, positive things are said and written. If you have a bad outcome, very bad things are said and written.”

It didn’t hurt that Flaherty, another Black man, threw the game of his life, with his mother and former Harvard-Westlake Middle School teammates in the stands. Hereafter, outfielder Mookie Betts came off the schneid with a bases-clearing double in the ninth, after reaching and scoring the game’s first run.