During his seven seasons as manager of the Los Angeles Dodgers, Dave Roberts has made some very good decisions.

He has also made some very bad decisions.

In the bottom of the seventh inning of Saturday night’s win-or-go-home fourth game of the 2022 National League Division Series against the San Diego Padres at a very loud Petco Park, the 50-year-old Naha, Japan native made what many are calling the single worst decision of his managerial career when he decided to remove starting left-hander Tyler Anderson from what was clearly the single best – and most important – start of his seven-year MLB career.

With his team up 2-0 after Anderson’s brilliant five innings of work in which he allowed just two singles, Roberts decided to pull Anderson, who had made a total of 86 pitches (54 of which were strikes), opting to have 36-year-old/seven-year MLB veteran right-hander Chris Martin pitch the sixth inning. Martin allowed no runs on two hits with a huge strikeout of always-dangerous Padres first baseman Wil Myers to end the inning and the threat.

“I could’ve gone five more innings. I would’ve thrown 150 pitches if they would’ve let me. But you never second guess that situation,” a disappointed but ‘politically correct’ Anderson would later tell reporters.

And then the proverbial wheels fell off of Roberts’ bus.

With exceptionally effective Anderson and equally effective Martin out of the game, Roberts decided to have 33-year-old right-hander Tommy Kahnle pitch the bottom of the sixth. The Latham, NY native and fifth-round draft pick in 2010 by the New York Yankees out of Lynn University in Boca Raton, FL, promptly walked the first batter he faced, Padres left fielder Jurickson Profar, and then gave up gave up back-to-back singles to Padres center fielder Trent Grisham and catcher Austin Nola, scoring Profar to make it 3-1 Dodgers.

It gets worse; Much worse.

Without recording an out and with Grisham on second and Nola on first, Roberts replaced Kahnle with right-hander Yency Almonte to face right-handed-hitting Padres shortstop Ha-Seong Kim, who laced Almonte’s fourth pitch into left field scoring Grisham to make it 3-2 Dodgers, with Nola taking third on the play. The next batter, Padres right fielder Juan Soto, then singled to right scoring Nola to tie the game at 3-3, with Kim advancing to third base. Almonte then struck out Padres third baseman Manny Machado for (finally) the first out of the inning. He then got Padres designated hitter Brandon Drury to pop out to Dodgers first baseman Freddie Freeman in foul territory for the second out of the frame.

Roberts then brought in left-hander Alex Vesia (on a 1-0 count) to face Padres left-handed-hitting Padres second baseman Jake Cronenworth. Roberts would later tell reporters that Vesia was supposed to make a pickoff throw to first base (on Soto) to allow Dodgers right-hander Evan Phillips a little extra time to warm-up in the Dodgers bullpen, but Vesia missed the sign.

Soto stole second base.

With two outs and runners on second and third, Vesia threw a 87.5-MPH slider to Cronenworth, which he ripped into right-center field for a two-run single, making it 5-3 Padres, which would end up being the final score to eliminate the Dodgers from the 2022 postseason.

As expected, among the (burning) questions asked of “extremely disappointed” (his words) Roberts postgame was: Did he consider sending Anderson back out to pitch the sixth inning having made only 86 pitches to that point?

“There was some thought, but I thought where he was at with his pitch count, who was coming up, I just felt that we had enough arms to get through that,” Roberts answered, in what came across as an attempt to justify his questionable decision. “And with a two-nothing lead, you know, Soto, Machado coming up again, I just felt that he’s going to be in the 90’s (pitch count-wise) at that point in time, I felt that we had enough coverage.”

Bad decision, Dave.

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