In honor of Major League Baseball’s celebration of Roberto Clemente Day on Sunday, Dodgers manager Dave Roberts called a clubhouse meeting Sunday afternoon to discuss the Puerto Rican legend’s influence on the game.
Then, before the team dispersed roughly three hours before first pitch, the ninth-year manager offered a parting message to his players too.
Despite all the injuries to their pitching staff, all the questions about their roster depth, and the seemingly steep path they’re facing with October on the horizon, Roberts reminded the room that he still believes.
In the team’s ability to finish off a division title in the National League West.
In their chances of mounting a deep, albeit unconventional, potential run through the playoffs.
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And, as he later told reporters, in “the talent we have, the character we have.”
“[It] is plenty,” he declared, “to win the World Series.”
In their ensuing 9-2 win over the Atlanta Braves, the Dodgers dramatically delivered on everything Roberts was talking about.
Despite entering the night with losses in six of their previous nine games, and an NL West lead that had been trimmed to three games by the surging San Diego Padres, the Dodgers put all the pieces together in a momentum-shifting victory at Truist Park.
Walker Buehler battled through early command issues in a six-inning, two-run (one earned), five-strikeout start, marking one of the best performances of his trying season.
The lineup erased an early two-run deficit with the kind of fight that has been lacking at times in recent weeks, keyed by a couple RBI doubles from Shohei Ohtani.
Then, with the score tied 2-2 in the top of the ninth, the Dodgers’ other superstar bats erupted for a decisive seven-run rally — one that included RBI singles from Mookie Betts and Freddie Freeman after an intentional walk to Ohtani with two outs, then three-straight home runs from Teoscar Hernández, Tommy Edman and Max Muncy to put the game away.
It was a sigh of relief, a flurry of exaltation and a potential postseason statement, all wrapped up into one potentially season-defining display.
“I don’t want to say it was the biggest win of the year,” Roberts said, a fair assessment for a club that has bounced between hope and dread during an up-and-down campaign. “But it felt big. Just considering what we’ve been going…