It is a scene from the classic 1987 hit comedy movie ‘Planes, Trains, and Automobiles.’ Comedians John Candy and Steve Martin are driving down the highway when the occupants of a car on the other side of the center divider repeatedly yells at them, “You’re going the wrong way!” The pair shrug off the warning, suggesting the other car’s occupants are drunk. As it turns out, Candy and Martin were indeed “…going the wrong way,” nearly colliding head-on with two rapidly approaching semis.

The Dodgers are “…going the wrong way.”

For the second consecutive day, the team picked by many to win the 2022 World Series was beaten – badly – by the worst team in the National League West.

“Well, up until this series, I thought that we played good baseball, fundamental baseball – catching it, throwing it accurately. This series, we didn’t do a good job of that,” Dodgers manager Dave Roberts told reporters after his team’s second consecutive embarrassing loss to the Arizona Diamondbacks at Chase Field. “I don’t have an answer for it. I expect it to, you know, get back to normal, but I think overall it just wasn’t … I thought we pitched well this series, but, you know, outside of that, I don’t … I think we didn’t have a good series.”

But here’s the thing: If the manager doesn’t “…have an answer for it,” who does? Isn’t it the manager’s job to fix what’s broken? If so-called utility players make extremely costly throwing errors on consecutive days, isn’t it the manager’s responsibility to replace them with someone who won’t?

Granted, it isn’t Roberts’ fault that his once-clutch offense hit into five double plays on Tuesday night and went 1-for-3 with runners in scoring position and stranded six runners on base on Wednesday afternoon. But it is his responsibility to field a defense that plays “…good baseball, fundamental baseball – catching it, throwing it accurately,” by replacing those who do not.

Roberts’ explanation for this?

“Everything looks sort of sluggish or sloppy when you’re not getting hits and, you know, that’s kinda how it looked today,” Roberts answered evasively. “I think in this particular case, you gotta give (Diamondbacks starting right-hander) Zak (Gallen) credit; he threw the baseball well. You gotta give those guys credit today.”

“The last two days, the Dodger players will agree, they have not played good baseball,” former Dodger and current SportsNet LA analyst Jerry Hairston Jr. said after the Dodgers’ ugly 3-1 loss. “Offensively, defensively – just didn’t get it done.”

The irony is that Roberts gave his real third baseman, 37-year-old Justin Turner, who has yet to commit an error at third base in 26 chances this season (1.000 FPCT), the day off on Wednesday and instead had Muncy, who has now committed two errors in 23 chances (.913 FPCT) at ‘the hot corner.’

Credit where due.

So, too, criticism.

The good news is that following Thursday’s scheduled off-day, the Dodgers return home to open a five-game homestand – three with the Detroit Tigers and two with the NL West-leading (by half a game) San Francisco Giants. Even better news, the Dodgers are 6-1 at Dodger Stadium in the early goings of the 2022 season, so they’ve got that going for them.

Play Ball!

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