WHAT THE HELL ARE YOU DOING, COACH!!!???
We all know that guy, right? The one who, if he were in charge, nothing would ever go wrong for his favorite team. Every play call, substitution, or pinch-hitting decision is idiotic — and he’d do it better from his couch, beer in hand, surrounded by snack crumbs and misplaced self-confidence. Any success the current coach has is dumb luck, and every failure? Obviously his fault.
The other night, I’m at my pool league spot talking with my buddy Mike — which, to be clear, is his actual name. Mike bleeds Eagles green and, for some reason, absolutely loathes Nick Sirianni. The man could cure world hunger and Mike would complain he didn’t do it fast enough. Sirianni could hand-deliver a Lombardi Trophy to his front door and Mike would find fault with the polishing technique.
Mike’s eyes twitch when Sirianni shows up on screen. He’s five margaritas deep and growing more animated by the syllable. Here’s how it went, edited only for brevity and the seventy or so f-bombs that you can mentally reinsert wherever they fit.
“I’m Telling You, Hurts Sucks…”
Mike: “I’m telling you, Hurts sucks. The offense moves the ball so much better with McKee.”
Me: “That’s in preseason though, man. He’s playing against fourth-string insurance adjusters.”
Mike: “Not true! He started games last year and killed it!”
Me: “You mean last year when the Eagles won the Super Bowl with Hurts and Sirianni?”
Mike: “You and I could’ve coached that team and won a Super Bowl! They have such a talented roster!”
Me: “Except for Hurts, right?”
Mike: “EXACTLY! See? You get it!”
Me: “That was sarcasm.”
Mike: “AUSTIN! ANOTHER CADILLAC!”
The man’s liver was filing for emancipation in real time.
Ridiculous, right? Except... what if he’s not wrong?
No, not about Hurts — the guy’s an MVP-caliber quarterback and the tush push should be declared a controlled substance. But what if — and hear me out — what if the drunk guy at the end of the bar occasionally has a point?
Here Is Why I Ask
In Roberts’ 10 seasons in charge before 2025, the Dodgers had managed to win two World Series — the 2020 COVID-shortened crapshoot and 2024. A notable achievement, of course, but considering their financial might and star-studded roster, it’s worth asking if they maybe left a couple on the table as well. Yes, there was the 2017 loss to the Astros and the well-publicized cheating scandal, but even the cheating may not have made a difference if Roberts had not thrown Brandon Morrow until his arm fell off and left a clearly compromised Yu Darvish to die on the mound in the deciding Game 7. There was also the 2018 World Series against the Red Sox, where — down two games to one but cruising in Game 4 behind a dominant Rich Hill — Roberts inexplicably pulled Hill in favor of Scott Alexander, starting one of the greatest single-game bullpen collapses in history. Then there was the dominant 2019 team, on its way to winning the deciding Game 5 against the Nationals when Roberts elected to use Clayton Kershaw in relief instead of the hot-and-ready Kenta Maeda, and watched his lead vanish faster than a glass of 21-year-old Glenfarclas from my table. He then left Joe Kelly in for a second inning despite all the numbers and metrics advising strongly against it, and watched him give up the game-winning grand slam to Howie Kendrick.
Any one of these missteps could be argued as fireable — let alone three of them in successive seasons. And these are only the high-profile ones.
Fast-forward to 2024: it all seemed to change. Left with only three healthy starters in the postseason — mid-season acquisition Jack Flaherty, Yoshinobu Yamamoto, and the decaying carcass of Dodger legend Walker Buehler — Roberts was forced to navigate the postseason bracket by leaning heavily on his bullpen. And it worked, to a large degree. The coalition consisting of the likes of veteran Blake Treinen, journeyman Anthony Banda, fiery Alex Vesia, oft-injured Brusdar Graterol, and more kept it together under the strain of an unprecedented workload and delivered the championship. Every decision Roberts made came up Milhous, including riding Treinen to pitch counts he hadn’t sniffed since his rookie year.
Previous blunders, no matter how egregious, were forgotten in the afterglow of a freshly minted championship, followed shortly thereafter by a lucrative contract extension for Roberts. Over ten seasons, he had grown from the likable people-person and ego manager who made crushingly self-destructive blunders in the most pivotal moments with astonishing regularity for someone who remains employed, to the likable people-person and ego manager who could, in fact, pull the right strings at the right times and position his team to win.
Present Day
Game 2 on October 6 should have been Roberts-proof in the worst of times, let alone on a team trying to repeat as champions with the offense flying in high gear. Your starter gave you six stunningly brilliant innings. You have a lockdown option for the ninth inning. Your bullpen as a whole has been struggling. You’ve got a four-run lead. Go to your most trusted option outside the closer and see how far he takes you. Let Roki do the rest.
Except that’s not how it went.
Roberts elected to go with Emmett Sheehan, the hard-throwing rookie with a sensationally bright future but whose playoff debut against the Reds in the previous round went so badly that he got pulled mid-at-bat. Nerves clearly playing a factor, Sheehan nearly screwed up an unscrewable lead with a baffling inability to find the strike zone. And now Roberts was trusting him to be the bridge to the ninth in a massive Game 2 against the powerful Phillies. It was a baffling decision, and nobody understood it—probably not even Roberts himself. The broadcast team openly questioned it.
However, it didn’t turn out badly. Sheehan retired three straight hitters on just nine pitches, eight of which were strikes. They weren’t quality strikes—possibly still traumatized from his previous outing, Sheehan just pumped one fastball after another down the middle, a truly dangerous way to live as a pitcher—but he emerged unscathed as the Phillies did little with them.
In the eighth, Roberts elected to keep Sheehan in. The ship took on some water as Sheehan gave up a triple, followed immediately by an RBI single, but he was able to escape the inning without further damage. The collective sigh of relief heaved by Dodgers fans around the globe registered on Doppler readings. Surely, having gotten away with a dubious decision, Roberts would now go to the closest thing to a sure thing he had.
Except this, too, is not how it went.
The 9th
Perhaps harkening to days past when he was a reliable bullpen option, Roberts went with Blake Treinen to protect his now three-run lead. After his heroic exploits in the 2024 World Series, Treinen wasn't the same pitcher. He spent a good amount of time on the injured list with a bum shoulder and simply wasn't the same guy when he returned. His fastball velocity was still there, but his command was all but non-existent, and his once-devastating table-top slider was now a loopy offering devoid of all sharpness. His September was especially poor, prompting some incredibly clever Twitter user (me) to dub him The Trein Wreck.
Those utterly baffled by the decision to go with Treinen immediately had their fears confirmed. Alec Bohm singled, J.T. Realmuto doubled, and Nick Castellanos drove both in with a double down the left-field line. In a way, the Dodgers caught an odd break. Left fielder Enrique Hernández made a perfect throw to second base, in plenty of time to nab Castellanos, but second baseman Tommy Edman inexplicably missed the tag. Had Edman applied the tag like any Little Leaguer would have, Roberts may have been tempted to keep Treinen in the game with one out and the bases empty, all but assuring disaster.
Instead, with the tying run at second base and nobody out, Roberts replaced The Trein Wreck with Alex Vesia, a volatile but battle-tested southpaw well-liked by Dodgers fans for his competitive spirit and fiery celebrations when he gets a strikeout in a big spot. In case you were wondering, Alex Vesia and Roki Sasaki are different people.
Vesia did well enough, benefiting from a heads-up defensive play on Bryson Stott's sacrifice bunt attempt by Max Muncy, gunning down Castellanos at third on a wheel play, the tag expertly applied by Mookie Betts. Tommy Edman was seen not taking notes. Pinch hitter Harrison Bader lasered a single, putting runners on first and second. Max Kepler grounded into a fielder's choice, advancing Stott to third, but now with two outs. Only then did Roberts go to Sasaki, to face the NL's batting champion, Trea Turner.
Sasaki did the job, boring a 101 mph fastball in on the hands of Turner, who poked it weakly to second base. The drama wasn't done yet, as Edman short-armed a one-hopper to first base, expertly dug out by Freddie Freeman. So both Edman’s and Roberts’ blushes were spared. Edman, who is an abysmal second baseman, will know he narrowly escaped humiliation. Roberts, oblivious as ever, will likely have fancied himself a genius for going to Sasaki at the exact right time to get the save.
The Point
Ultimately, it's no harm, no foul, right? The team that was supposed to win won, never mind the mind-boggling decisions of their manager. Well, it's no harm, no foul this time. Just because pure incompetence didn't cost a team one time doesn't mean it won't the next time.
As the saying goes (paraphrased), there's a reason the guys in the dugout managing or on the sideline coaching are getting paid to do their jobs while you are twice divorced and drunk on a Sunday morning, hurling expletives at the television. And in most cases, the saying holds true. Gregg Popovich, Bill Belichick, Paul Maurice, and a bunch of lesser-known but no less accomplished leaders are beyond reproach.
No, not every decision they've made—or will make—will turn out correct, nor will every decision they make follow conventional fan logic. But they've earned the benefit of the doubt when it comes to using their brains.
Case in point: I challenge you, dear reader. Find a hundred drunk but still conscious people in a bar with at least a passing interest in baseball and give them the following hypothetical: "Your team is up by three. The bottom of the ninth inning is next, and it's an important playoff game. You need to pick a pitcher to send out to the mound. Who are you going with?"
I'd wager you'll get the unanimous sentiment of "my closer," "the best guy I've got left," or "literally anyone but the guy with the nickname of carnage resulting from rail catastrophe." If even one of these people responds with anything to the effect of "the likeliest guy to blow the game in spectacular fashion," I won't give you anything—but I'll concede you've won the bet.
So before you dismiss the rantings of the guy on his seventh Manhattan, consider, please—does he have a point?
The Chaser
A little bonus story for you:
The year is 2014. The United States Men’s National Team is in the World Cup, facing off against a powerful Portugal squad in the group stage. Portugal is universally expected to dispatch the U.S. with minimal fuss, a prediction that looked accurate when the Portuguese took the lead with only five minutes gone in the game.
I’m at a local watering hole with friends to watch the game, and it’s packed. Standing room only. There are plenty of reasons men’s soccer will never achieve its potential in the United States, but lack of fan support isn’t one of them. The atmosphere is wild.
One fan on the patio in particular stood out. He was easily six foot five or more, and built like a brick outhouse. He had clearly played American football—probably through college—and at age fifty or so was still in good enough shape to show off a massively muscular physique under his XXXL USMNT jersey. He too was there to cheer our boys on but knew precious little about soccer. This was evidenced by the questions he was asking his friends: “What does offside mean in soccer?” “Why didn’t he take that guy out?” “Would picking a guy up and slamming him to the ground be a yellow card or a red card?”
But the big fella wasn’t just some meathead. By the second half, he’d caught on. The directions he was shouting at the TV screen wouldn’t have been how most soccer fans would have shouted them, but “PASS IT TO THAT GUY, HE’S WIDE F***ING OPEN!!!” and “WIDE!!!” have essentially the same meaning, right?
It was one thing in particular he asked his friend that stuck with me. “Jesus, is that guy just terrible or is there a purpose behind him losing the ball every time he touches it?” His friend replied, “He’s not normally this bad, but he’s definitely awful today.”
They were talking about Michael Bradley, of course, the longtime holding central midfielder for the USMNT. And before you think this is a hit piece, it’s not. Bradley could always be counted on to give his all for the shirt. On the majority of occasions, his performances ranged from acceptable to quite good. On this occasion, he was by miles the worst player on the field and turned in quite possibly the worst performance by a player in World Cup history. He could not keep possession. He could not complete a pass. He couldn’t do anything. And somehow, coach Jürgen Klinsmann didn’t sub him out—a decision that would prove costly.
And look, one abysmal game does not define a legacy, OK? Michael Jordan, the consensus greatest basketball player of all time, once had a game (in his prime, no less) where he shot 9-for-35 from the field and committed nine turnovers. Clayton Kershaw, perhaps the greatest pitcher of this generation, once gave up seven earned runs in 1⅓ innings to a mediocre Diamondbacks team. Legendary quarterback and all-around douche canoe Brett Favre once threw five interceptions in a playoff game.
“Why doesn’t the coach take him out!?” the big guy shouted, clearly exasperated. “I don’t know,” his stressed-out friend replied. We were all stressed out.
And then we weren’t. A scrappy but effective attack led to Graham Zusi playing a perfect cross right onto the beefy schlong of Clint Dempsey, who expertly wienered it over the goal line for a 2–1 U.S. lead in the 81st minute.
If you ever want to hear commentating genius, you don’t have to understand a lick of Spanish to appreciate the brilliance of Andrés Cantor in this clip:
👉 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zKukN1IXPMM
But the elation wouldn’t last long. Bradley’s mere continuing presence on the field was worse than if the U.S. had just played with ten men. After all, a non-existent player can’t just give the ball to the opposing team. If that space is unoccupied, the opposing team has to chase it.
In the final minute of stoppage time, a criminal turnover from Bradley at midfield led to a Portugal fast break—Cristiano Ronaldo expertly crossing into the U.S. box for Silvestre Varela to head home the equalizer.
The bar was stunned into silence. I thought the big guy was going to cry. I will tell you one other thing about the big guy, who heretofore knew zip, squat, and zilch about soccer: had he been in charge of the USMNT that game, Bradley wouldn’t have been on the field at the end.
Torsten / 120 Proof Ball
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