If you are a bottom-line person, the bottom line is that the Dodgers beat the New York Mets by a score of 6-5 in 10 innings at Citi Field on Friday night – period. That’s the bottom line. As a result, they are now 70-46 on the season and (still) trail the NL West first-place San Francisco Giants, who also won on Friday, by 5.0 games.

But if you are a die-hard Dodgers fan, manager Dave Roberts made what was arguably one of the most unpopular decisions of his six seasons as the Dodgers skipper on Friday night.

With two outs and a runner on second base in the bottom of the seventh inning and holding on to what appeared to be a commanding 4-0 lead over the (then) NL East second-place Mets, Roberts elected to remove Dodgers right-handed reliever Brusdar Graterol, who had retired those two Mets batters via strikeout, doing so on a combined eight pitches, including five that topped 100-MPH. Graterol’s ninth pitch, an 87.6-MPH slider, was hit into the right-field corner by Mets pinch-hitter Michael Conforto for a two-out double.

But rather than allowing the clearly dominant right-handed Graterol to face Mets left-handed-hitting replacement left fielder Dominic Smith, Roberts replaced Graterol with left-hander Justin Bruihl, who promptly gave up an RBI single to Mets pinch-hitter Jeff McNeil. When the dust finally settled and the inning ended, it was a 4-4 ballgame.

The Dodgers would ultimately prevail on a 10th-inning two-run home run by Dodgers catcher Will Smith (for you bottom-liners).

As he often does, during his postgame Zoom media session, Roberts justified his decision to pull the clearly effective right-handed Graterol for the recently-called-up (on August 8) left-handed Bruihl.

“I just think, for me, looking at the next three or four hitters, they were left-handed, this was three of four (games) for Brusdar, we haven’t done that very often to him, so for him to pitch today, you know, it was a conversation,” Roberts explained. “And so, for him to face the two hitters, the double from Conforto, Justin’s been very good for us. So to give him two cracks to get through that inning, to get the ball to the eighth, and to not push Brusdar, I felt it was the best chance to get through that inning, and a couple unlucky soft balls that found outfield grass, and it’s good baseball. But if I had to do the same thing again, I would do it again.”

Did I mention that the Dodgers (still) trail the NL West first-place San Francisco Giants by 5.0 games?

Play Ball!

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