The Dodgers have spent the first two games of their NLDS with the Braves leaning on bullpen games, and now they’re staring at a much tougher assignment: 10-time All-Star and former Cy Young winner Chris Sale.
Sale enters Game 3 with the kind of numbers that make a lineup card feel a little thinner. He posted a 2.16 ERA with 200 strikeouts over 162.2 innings in the regular season, then gave up three runs across 6.1 innings in his wild-card Game 1 start before throwing 1.1 scoreless innings to finish Game 3.
Los Angeles knows exactly what kind of night that can create.
"Chris is going to be tough," Roberts said. "We know we're going to be in for a dogfight."
That challenge has Roberts thinking about shuffling his lineup, particularly against the left-hander. He made it clear he’s not locked into the same group that opened the series.
“I think so," Roberts said. "I am considering it.
I think that’s a very fair question. I think that I have to be mindful of - it’s two games, and then with the two games, what have I seen?”
Enrique Hernandez and Miguel Rojas were both mentioned as possible lineup options. Against Sale, the Dodgers’ best career results belong to Mookie Betts, who is 7-for-18, and Freddie Freeman, who is 5-for-16.
The bigger problem for Los Angeles has been how the runs have come. Every one of its seven runs in the series has come on a home run, and in Sunday’s Game 2 the Dodgers went 0-for-8 with runners in scoring position.
Sale has already shown what he can do to this lineup. When he faced the Dodgers on Aug. 27, he threw a complete-game shutout, struck out 11 and allowed only five hits.
A few Dodgers have also been stuck in the mud offensively. Will Smith is 0-for-8, Andy Pages is 0-for-7 and Tommy Edman is 0-for-5.
At the top, Shohei Ohtani has not looked like his usual self either. He’s 2-for-8 with two singles and two strikeouts, and Roberts said Monday that the lefty matchup is part of the equation.
"I think there's, like we've talked about, he's not 100%," Roberts said on Monday. "But at the end of the day, he can still do a better job of staying in the strike zone. ...
I think that's something that - it's hard to have success when you're out of the zone. ... And Shohei understands, any hitter understands that.
So I think that's the thing is - then the question is how do we get him into it? I think there's a little bit of trying to do too much.
I think that's a piece."
Roberts said he would even consider moving Ohtani down from his usual spot near the top of the order.
"Going further than [No. 2]?
I'm open to it," Roberts said. "It's something that, if I do, I would obviously have the conversation with Shohei to explain why.
And at the end of the day, every conversation I've had with him is, whatever is best for the team, he's all in on.”
Ohtani has also had his share of trouble against Sale, going 3-for-15 with five strikeouts in his career.
Still, Roberts stressed that any lineup tinkering only goes so far.
"At the end of the day, our guys are our guys," Roberts said. "And, yeah, I can tweak a lineup.
I can kind of insert, take out a player or two. But at the end of the day we still have got to go out there and play and execute and take good at-bats."
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