Dodgers’ Dave Roberts On Yasiel Puig, Pulling Kenta Maeda, And More

The Dodgers are now leading the series against the Diamondbacks 2-0 with Saturday’s 8-5 victory. They will travel to Arizona and go for the sweep on Monday with Yu Darvish on the mound. Zack Greinke will do his best to keep Arizona’s postseason chances alive.

Saturday’s game was full of exciting moments, especially since Arizona was winning 2-1 going into the bottom of the 4th inning. However, our boys in blue battled and the bottom part of the lineup (Logan Forsythe, Austin Barnes, and Yasiel Puig) really carried the team, going 7-12 with five runs batted in and five runs scored.

Dave Roberts caught up with the media after the win. Here is what he had to say, courtesy of SportsNetLA.

On pulling Kenta Maeda:

I think that for Kenta on this roster, he’s a righty killer. He’s really dominated right-handed hitters… He’s on the roster to do that and there was a run of righties and he did what he needed to do. And you look down the lineup and theres 3 or 4 left-handed hitters coming up and we’ve got Tony Watson on this roster to do just the opposite, get lefties out.

On Yasiel Puig’s energy, talent, and growth:

He’s full of energy and emotion… This is as good as we’ve seen him focus on every single pitch in the game and when you combine that with the skill-set that he has and the energy that he brings and, you know, he doesn’t only energize 50,000 people, he energizes everyone in the clubhouse. So when he’s in the box, when he’s making plays with his arm, his glove, on the bases, it’s exciting.

He’s really come a long way and he cares so much about his teammates and I think the coaches have done an amazing job with Yasiel just kind of loving on him, teaching him the game. Now you have the trust and the openness and he’s all about winning.

On length of the lineup and players like Cody Bellinger and Corey Seager not leading the pack:

It’s great, that’s what we talk about as far as the length in lineup, we’ve got a lot of good players and we’ve got a lot of depth. That 6 , 7 , 8 spot, these guys were on base all night and being productive and driving runs in… Cody will get on track, he’s just got to slow down a little bit, stay in the strike-zone, but yeah if Cody-Corey still got on base a couple of times tonight, had a nice one last night-but we’ve got a lot of guys that can hurt you.

Teamwork. #ThisTeam pic.twitter.com/pVmYZKNs1j

— Los Angeles Dodgers (@Dodgers) October 8, 2017

On the team being complacent going into Game 3:

That wont happen. I don’t need to say anything to our guys. We’re going to work out tomorrow, get on a plane, and be ready to play on Monday.

The Dodgers are playing like the best team in baseball, just like they were for the majority of the season. Do you think they complete the sweep on Monday? Let us know in the comments below!