Dodgers Team News

Dodgers: Champagne Toasts Aside, Dave Roberts Acknowledges the Job Isn’t Finished

There’s nothing more beautiful than October baseball, and with a victory over the Arizona Diamondbacks on Tuesday, that’s where the Dodgers are headed once again.

Los Angeles became the second team to clinch a postseason berth behind the Giants, and an accomplishment like this deserves to be celebrated. The team did just that, it seems, by holding a small toast to commemorate their 9th straight trip to the postseason.



“It never gets old”, said manager Dave Roberts after the team’s 8-4 vicroty on Tuesday night. “We did a little champagne toast, said a few words, and acknowledged the fact that it’s a big accomplishment. You don’t ever want to get jaded and not appreciate getting to the postseason because it’s not a rite of passage. So we acknowledged that, also acknowledged that we have a lot of work to do, and this is just the beginning.”

This is a Dodgers team that has been here before, which explains the tempered celebration. They understand that there is still a lot of work to do before a real celebration is merited. At the same time, however, it’s important for these players to appreciate what they have been able to accomplish this season.

While there are plenty of guys on this roster who have played in the postseason before, there are also those that are experiencing it all for the first time. According to Dave Roberts, the veterans wanted to make sure that those who haven’t been a part of the previous division titles had a moment to take it all in.

Related: Justin Turner Nominated for the Roberto Clemente Award

When Clayton Kershaw, Max Scherzer, Justin Turner say that you can’t take this for granted, although those guys have had the opportunity to do this many times over, the [Alex] Vesia’s, the [Phil] Bickford’s, the [Justin] Bruihl’s… all these different guys that haven’t had that opportunity, this is special. They were a big part of this, so for us to acknowledge it and have a little fun in there, it was good.

The Dodgers have plenty of difficult games left before they can turn their attention to the postseason, and priority number one will definitely be to overtake the Giants for the NL West title. Whether their first game comes in a Wild Card or in the NLDS, however, the Dodgers are officially one step closer to defending their title.

Daniel Palma

Daniel is an avid sports fan who loves his hometown teams. If he's not watching baseball, you can find him playing or coaching. No matter what, he'll always root for the Boys in Blue!

26 Comments

    1. that’s the playoffs – its called the Wild Card game – been around for a few years too. Dodgers can lose every game now and will still host the Wild Card on October 6. So they are in the playoffs!

  1. Tim:

    Yep, its most likely the one and done playoffs for the Dodgers. The Giants are playing very, very, good baseball right now and seem to be unwilling to lose just one game let alone a collapse that would allow the Dodgers to take the Division. The Dodger’s on again, off again, offense is not helpful no matter how good the pitching staff performs. Meanwhile, Bellinger is going hitless and still is lost at the plate. Why he won’t bunt, or take a few for the team and get on base is yet one more Roberts mystery.

    1. 1955 – Dodgers will not be 1 and done. Hosting the WC game at Dodger stadium on Oct 6 with Scherzer pitching? Not the pods, reds or cards can beat him!

    1. Loved the Dodgers acknowledging it, but with champagne toast but that’s it. They are Built for October with the best starting pitching staff in baseball. All 5 are healthy now (Trevor who???) so we got this! winning everything in sight now and still missing AJ and CT3 who will be back next week.

  2. The Dodgers really never were fated to win the WS this year. They’ve had to go through a gauntlet of unfortunate circumstances almost from the start of the season when Dustin May messed his arm up and is out for the season. Then by one’s and two’s players were getting hurt, or having to play with nagging injuries. And this has gone on all year long. They have never really played with 100% of their squad at any time in the past year.

    Before the season began, everyone all thought that there would be stopping the Dodgers running the table and winning their 2nd WS. They went out and got last years CY winner. At the time we asked if there was any other team in baseball with the Dodgers pitching talent. And then May went down. Gonsolin, Kershaw and on and on and on. The injury bug began to hit their position players, too. Many of them have been playing hurt and no one outside the clubhouse knew how bad it really was. And lets not forget the Trevor Bauer thing that blew up and now he’s on the shelf for the year. But then, amid all this chaos, a wonderful thing happened – the Dodgers went out and traded for Max Sherzer and Trea Turner. WOW! What a mega trade the Dodgers pulled off. That, alone, should have been enough to get them back on track and cruising to another 9th or 10th consecutive pennant. Not so fast! Something just as bad, if not more worse, than all the injuries poked its ugly head up and now threatens to destroy any chance the Dodgers have of even going very deep into the playoffs, not to mention winning another World Series. Dave Roberts.

    Now, I like the guy. He’s a great guy to have around. But, he’s not a very good manager. Well, maybe he could manage teams like the Diamondbacks or the Orioles. Their record is so bad that a manager could make a boned headed move and people would think they were trying something new to see if they could get their team winning. So, no one would really notice a bad decision in those circumstances. But, making a really bad decision, and being the manager of a team like the Dodgers or Giants, would instantly reveal who a bad manager is and in a quick hurry, too. It doesn’t matter how much talent a team has if the one making the decisions makes really bad ones. Like taking out of the lineup 3 really productive bats and then putting in 3 unproductive bats. This move would really be puzzling if your playing the division leader and your 3 games back. Why did he do such an odd thing? Because Roberts wanted to make sure the players were fresh for the end of season rush to the finish. What!? Are you kidding me? You sit three very productive bats, replace them with 3 non-productive bats, against the team leading the division (that you need to catch and overtake). Wow. And then there’s Cody Bellinger. 2 years removed from his MVP season and hitting monsters homeruns and who now is hitting .159 for the year. 159! I know Roberts love the guy and he’s loyal to his players, but what does Cody have to do before you admit that he’s really hurting the team by being played. If it were any other player you would have sent him down to OK to work out his problems. What did you say? You need his defensive glove in the outfield? What? No other Dodger can catch and field a ball like he can? So, you need him out there so he can maybe make a great play on a ball, the kind of ball that gets hit like 1 in a 1000 times, that no one else could have made a play on… maybe. The rest of the time he’s catching fly balls and throwing the ball in like any other Dodger player (Matt Beaty?) can do. Then there’s his undying loyalty to Kenley. Sure, Kenley is doing better now that he did when he lost about 3 saves in a row. The point is that KJ has shown that he’s no longer the stud he used to be. Yes. He’s doing ok now, but, how about doing what’s good for the team and gives them the best chance to win? Roberts is really slow to come to those kind of decisions. Like last year when he was forced to admit that Jansen was more likely to give the game away than to save it. So, Roberts had to take him out of the closer role and put him in a mid inning relief pitcher. The result? They won a championship. Go figure.

    So, basically, Roberts makes a ton of questionable decisions that make no sense at all. That’s why the Dodgers will most likely be booted early from this years playoffs. Most certainly won’t win another championship. There’s just too much against them. When you add Roberts into the mix, there’s no chance for them to do anything in the playoffs this year. Oh well. Wait until next year!

    1. most certainly will win another Championship! You have no idea how good this team is at full strength. we now have 24 of the 26 players we hoped to have, just missing AJ and CT3. We have 3 Cy Young candidates – not 1 not 2 but three!!! Plus we dropped Bauer (addition by subtraction) and added Scherzer and Trea Turner. No we have the best pitcher in baseball and a huge improvement at second base over Lux, etc. Stop looking at the season record as a minus – they defied all odds winning as much as they did with so many injuries all year long. Now that they are healthy, no one will beat them in any series, starting with Scherzer on the bump Oct 6 at home!

  3. The Giants are not used to clinching in the regular season; so, let’s just give them their animated celebration and Dodgers keep it moving. We still have a Division to fight for and definitely do not have much opportunity left. We must keep winning and hope, maybe against all hope, that other teams can do the same against the Giants… or WC, here we come!

  4. DS, you forgot one MAJOR point. The advantage that the Dodgers’ pitchers had (as per Bauer), that was taken away from them, was the crackdown on illegal substances on the ball. Yeah, I know that MLB allowed some form of substance to be used (that was a bad idea to begin with). But, with the ability to cheat taken away, well, they lost out on a number of wins I’m sure. Oh, and lets not forget, given the ‘greatness’ of the Dodgers as documented by sportswriter Bill Plaske (or whatever the spelling, they LOST the season series to the Giants. The Giants, given a 5% chance to make the playoffs at the beginning of the season, have now made the playoffs with a payroll of over $100 million dollars LESS than their rivals to the south.

  5. “Dave Roberts Acknowledges the Job Isn’t Finished,” re-read that again. This is the SAME Roberts who said without a doubt, this team will finish first. I had my doubts then and now.

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