Dave Roberts leans on his 2004 miracle as Dodgers face 3-0 NLCS hole
Dave Roberts is trending as Dodgers manager leans on the only 3-0 comeback in MLB history, the one he helped author as a Red Sox player in 2004.
Why Dave Roberts is trending
Dave Roberts is trending because his Dodgers are down 3-0 to the Brewers in the NLCS, and his own history with that exact deficit is the story everyone is pulling up. As a player, Roberts was part of the only team in Major League Baseball history to erase a 3-0 series lead, the 2004 Red Sox against the Yankees. Now he is the one running the dugout trying to pull off the same trick from the other side.
What is known: the Dodgers trail the series 3-0, and Roberts has been talking openly to reporters about how he plans to manage his players through it. One Dodgers player gave a blunt, profanity laced assessment of the team's play after the 3-0 hole, according to Fox News. What is not known is whether the Dodgers can actually complete the comeback. That part has not been decided and will not be until the games are played.
What Roberts pulled off in 2004
In the 2004 ALCS, Roberts was an outfielder for the Red Sox when Boston trailed the Yankees 3-0. In the bottom of the ninth inning of Game 4, with the Red Sox down 4-3, Roberts pinch ran for Kevin Millar. Yankees closer Mariano Rivera tried to hold him on first with repeated pickoff throws before Roberts stole second, beating the throw from catcher Jorge Posada. Two pitches later, Bill Mueller singled up the middle and Roberts scored to tie the game. Game 4 went to extra innings, and David Ortiz ended it with a walk-off home run in the 12th. The Red Sox won the next eight games, finishing off the Yankees and then sweeping the Cardinals in the World Series. Roberts wears No. 30 with the Dodgers now, a direct link back to that Boston team.
What Roberts and Ortiz are saying
Roberts told FOX Sports' Ken Rosenthal that he is drawing on lessons from then-Red Sox manager Terry Francona, leaning on urgency balanced with loosening his players up. He said the plan is to keep guys loose and have fun. Ortiz, who hit the 2004 walk-off, backed his former teammate publicly, saying the Dodgers have the right guy in Roberts and calling him my brother Dave Roberts. Ortiz credited that same mindset, staying loose with nothing to lose, to what Francona taught Roberts originally.
Where the series stands
None of this is a prediction and none of it is betting advice. It is simply the backdrop reporters and fans are digging into while the Dodgers try to climb out of a 3-0 hole against the Brewers. The history says it has happened exactly once, and the manager trying to make it happen again lived it himself.
Facts per Fox News, FOX Sports. Opinion is the taproom's.