Dave Roberts' comments on botched Will Smith, Yamamoto challenge won't improve Dodgers' mood

Everything is going wrong for the Los Angeles Dodgers in the NLCS. The Milwaukee Brewers look like the better, more resilient team, while the Dodgers appear to be falling apart.

Things are going so poorly that Dodgers manager Dave Roberts is considering benching Shohei Ohtani. But that wasn't the only news that Roberts made after the Dodgers fell behind 2-0 in the series.

A pivotal moment in LA's loss came during the third inning when Yoshinobu Yamamoto went head-to-head with Brewers' second baseman Brice Turang. Milwaukee's bats did a great job of working deep into counts against Yamamoto, and Turang’s lengthy at-bat proved to be a critical turning point in the game.

Turang drew a walk on a pitch that appeared to clip the strike zone. Yamamoto motioned to his catcher, Will Smith, clearly wanting him to challenge the call. Smith declined, and Turang was awarded first base. The wheels came off after that, and Roberts did not seem pleased with the entire sequence of events.

No one on the Dodgers is happy about key missed ABS challenge, and now LA is on the brink

To Smith's credit, he explained his thought process after the game. From his perspective, he thought the pitch in question was outside, and he didn't want to burn one of the Dodgers' two challenges so early in the game on a borderline pitch.

After the game, Roberts didn't mince words about the missed challenge. “I didn’t appreciate that. Will’s got a great view of that, you try to defer to your catchers for challenges. If you look back, that changes the outing.”

Roberts is not wrong. Had Smith challenged the pitch, Milwaukee would have had a runner at second with two outs instead of runners on first and second with one out. That set the stage for Christian Yelich to come to the plate with the bases loaded later in the inning and break the game open. Baseball is a game of inches, and Smith fell short in the biggest spot of the entire game.

Now, the Dodgers find themselves in deep trouble against a Brewers team that is not afraid. The NLCS returns to LA now, which should give the Dodgers time to reset in front of a friendly home crowd. However, they're also facing a 2-0 deficit, and they can't rely on Ohtani to save them this time. To make matters worse, they aren't even doing the little things right.

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