The Dodgers played their way to a fairly comfortable 8-0 victory in a road elimination game in Game 4 of the NLDS on Wednesday night in San Diego. Due to the nature of this win, history is unlikely to remember it as a great managed game from Dave Roberts, but his work in getting the team to this point deserves a lot of credit.

Before we get into why this was such an impressive management job, there is one aspect we must acknowledge when praising a manager. It doesn’t matter if you’re a veteran Joe Torre or Stephen Vogt working in your first postseason, every manager first needs his team to put him in a position to succeed, and then does that by making the right decisions take for that authority. What could Roberts have done to prevent that 10-1 loss in game 2? Actually nothing.

This time, the Dodgers lineup responded well with their backs against the wall, and LA threw with the lead from their first pitch to their last. yet there were many times when things could get very tricky if not managed properly.

Between the two lefties pitching for the Dodgers (Anthony Banda got two outs and Vesia got five) you had a very unusual early outing as things got closer at times in the third inning. Despite leading 5-0, Roberts sent Michael Kopech to the top of the Padres order with plenty of game left to play.

This move took me back to Game 4 in 2022, when LA lost the series without using its then-top reliever (Evan Phillips) before the lead was taken away.

Kopech threw a scoreless frame and allowed the Dodgers to hold the five-run lead in a weak spot. The danger was well represented by the performance of Fernando Tatis Jr., possibly the hottest hitter of the entire postseason. Kopech made a pretty decent pitch, throwing a fastball into the outside corner, but Tatis crushed the ball into deep right-center for a double. Tatis is 7-for-16 in the series with three home runs and three doubles so far.

The key to that situation was that it came with two outs and no one on, Kopech got Jurickson Profar on the next at bat and no damage was done. Maybe Tatis was too hot for it each Dodgers pitcher was the pitcher at the time, but the amount of danger he could cause was minimized because there was no one on base. Who knows how this game will unfold if SD scores one, maybe two early runs.

Speaking of Tatis, the next time he came up, the Padres had one of their biggest chances of the game, and Roberts trusted Phillips to erase Vesia’s little mess in the fifth. Phillips threw five straight sweepers and had more luck than skill with the last one, as Tatis just missed one into the heart of the zone for what could have been a three-run homer. No matter how well a team and manager do throughout an entire game, chances are you’ll get to a point where a bit of luck is required.

There wasn’t a single move that clearly deserved much praise, and LA achieved more comfort with a three-spot in the seventh to take an 8-0 lead. However, that’s often the way it is in baseball, where a lot of little things are worth praising rather than a single outstanding performance. Roberts simply pushed the right buttons from start to finish. A figure so criticized during this team’s recent October failures, this time Roberts did the best with what he had, and LA now gets the chance to decide its fate at home in Game 5.