One week on job, Dodgers manager Dave Roberts ripe for second-guessing

Dave Roberts could’ve managed the Dodgers for five seasons before he got tossed into this sort of cement mixer.

Such is the danger of having to make concrete decisions in the unforgiving arena of sports.

Five games into his tenure, Roberts had to decide how long to stick with rookie pitcher Ross Stripling in the throes of a no-hitter against the archrival Giants on Friday night at AT&T Park.

If you’re reading this, you already know the answer: 100 pitches. And you also know how it turned out: Stripling’s replacement with one out in the eighth, Chris Hatcher, served up a tying two-run homer, and the Giants went on to win 3-2 in 10 innings.

Like a lot of people watching, I was incredulous at first – how in the heck do you pull a pitcher with a chance to throw a no-hitter in his first career start? – but there is plenty of evidence supporting Roberts’ move.

Stripling hadn’t thrown more than 70 pitches during spring training and had never surpassed 100 pitches in three seasons of minor-league ball. Last year, he threw just 71 1/3 innings after undergoing Tommy John surgery in 2014. It was raining, and Stripling had just issued his fourth walk.

“I made the decision that if somebody gets on base, we will go to (Hatcher),” Roberts told reporters afterward. “That’s kind of how it played out.”

Although the 26-year-old’s steely-eyed expression when Roberts pulled him suggested otherwise, Stripling backed his manager.

Even though in the back of his mind, he has to know he may never get another chance to throw a no-hitter – and certainly never under these circumstances.

“I think it was the right choice,” said Stripling, who wasn’t told he was on a pitch limit. “I was tired. He could tell I was trending downward. … I gotta think I was visibly tired if I felt tired.”

There has been some suggestion that the decision wasn’t Roberts’ to make. That the Dodgers’ analytically minded front office set a strict pitch limit, and he was following bosses’ orders.

If so, it makes you wonder who’s really in charge of the in-game decisions. And how much the Dodgers’ veterans will respect Roberts if they think their rookie manager is just a puppet.

Pretty certain no one in the Giants’ clubhouse questions who’s steering their ship.

Certainly, the recent trend throughout baseball is to protect young arms. Double-digit pitch limits are common in the minors; even Giants farmhands during their affiliation with Triple-A Fresno rarely, if ever, reached 100 pitches.

The Grizzlies’ new parent club, the Houston Astros, takes things further with a six-man starting rotation.

“It’s all about limiting innings,” Grizzlies manager Tony DeFrancesco explained.

Stripling wasn’t the only Dodgers pitcher on a strict pitch count. Ace Clayton Kershaw threw 83 pitches on Opening Day, veteran Scott Kazmir threw 75 the next and import Kenta Maeda followed with 83. All three were brilliant, albeit against the Padres.

So maybe quick hooks are an organizational philosophy, at least in early April.

Fewer pitches. Less strain on valuable arms. More rest between starts. Yet every time you turn around, another pitcher is going under the knife, including Stripling once already.

“I think it’s a great story,” Roberts said. “(Stripling) pitched well, but under no circumstances am I going to even consider putting his future in jeopardy. Pretty much for me, it was a no-brainer.”

Roberts might want to spend more time consulting his gray matter.

Let’s accept the fact that Stripling, under zero circumstances was going to be allowed to surpass 100.

So why did Roberts send him out there for the eighth?

Stripling had already thrown 91 pitches through seven. If the ceiling was nine pitches away, don’t scrape it at all.

It’s also fair to question why Roberts didn’t call upon closer Kenley Jansen for the five-out save. Yes, I realize closers rarely work more than one inning anymore, especially so early in the season, but Jansen had only pitched once.

I’ll tell you why Roberts sent Stripling back out there: He hadn’t allowed a hit. The Giants had hardly made hard contact on him. Or in Trevor Brown’s case, any contact at all.

But none of that mattered once the pitch clock struck 100.

“I hadn’t even fouled a ball off (Stripling),” said Brown, who struck out swinging in both of his previous at-bats. “I know it was his debut, but honestly, I was surprised. It was a sigh of relief, honestly, to get a different pitcher out there.”

That different pitcher, Hatcher, served up a 3-1 fastball that Brown jerked into the left-field bleachers for his first major-league home run.

Funny thing is, had Stripling remained in the game, the Giants reportedly would’ve sent up Buster Posey to pinch hit.

So who knows what would’ve happened.

Roberts, who was ejected later in the game for arguing balls and strikes, does not deserve to be lambasted for protecting his pitcher. Let’s not laud him either, though. Not after what happened next.

That conclusion certainly draws upon the benefit of hindsight. But this is baseball, and second-guessing the manager is as much a part of the game as hot dogs and the seventh-inning stretch.

Sure didn’t take long for Roberts to get indoctrinated.

This story was originally published April 9, 2016 at 6:14 PM with the headline "One week on job, Dodgers manager Dave Roberts ripe for second-guessing."