Dave Roberts might’ve just inspired Dodgers’ bullpen with latest harsh comments

Very rarely do you have a contender that has such a clear hole like this year’s iteration of the Dodgers. They’re in the top 10 in baseball in nearly every offensive category, and their starting rotation has compiled a sparkling 3.76 ERA to go along with the second-best strikeout rate in all of baseball.

And then there’s the bullpen.

The Dodgers’ bullpen entered play on Thursday with a 4.24 ERA (which was tied for the ninth-worst mark in baseball) to go along with 33 losses and 25 blown saves. 

And while no bullpen is ever going to be perfect, it’s the kind of glaring black hole that seemed primed for some kind of big meltdown when the postseason gets here. 

But things appear to be on the upswing at the perfect time. 

After the Dodgers’ relievers blew another game on Tuesday, manager Dave Roberts was unusually blunt about his bullpen, telling reporters, “Our starters can’t go nine every night, We’re looking for some guys to step up. … Guys have got to do their job. You have to do your job. I can’t put it any more nice.”

A day later, the Dodgers picked up a huge 5-4 over the Diamondbacks where Clayton Kershaw pitched a scoreless inning in relief (his first relief outing since 2019) while Roki Sasaki also added a scoreless inning of relief where his fastball touched 99 miles per hour. Both Alex Vesia and Edgardo Henriquez faltered in a three-run eighth, but two impressive new (familiar) contributors helped hold down the fort for an eventual extra-inning win. The dueling new wrinkles to the unit were very impressive.

"I just think there’s a lot more confidence, a lot more conviction and obviously the stuff is up where it was earlier this year," Roberts said after the game about Sasaki. "He’s learned a lot from this season, some of the struggles, not being able to participate, being in Triple-A, the rehab assignment and coming back.”

Roki Sasaki and Clayton Kershaw could help stabilize the Dodgers' bullpen this October

Not only is that a far cry from what Roberts said 24 hours before, but it’s also a far cry from how the start of the season went for Sasaki. He had a 4.72 ERA through his first eight starts through the rotation before suffering a shoulder injury, but he looked every bit the ace on Wednesday, albeit in a relief role. 

While one start doesn’t take away from those early season struggles, it does open up the Pandora’s Box about how he could be used in the postseason. The Dodgers have five-alarm fire at the back of their bullpen (they lead all of baseball with 23 blown saves in the second half), and neither Tanner Scott nor Blake Trenien are at the top of their game right now. 

Enter Sasaki. 

He may not be the front-line starter that we expected him to be when the Dodgers signed him in the offseason, but he’d be able to turn his signing into a clear win this October by morphing into a shutdown closer. 

Yes, the Dodgers still have less than a week to figure out how they want to assemble their postseason bullpen, but things are already looking a lot better than they did at the beginning of the week.