An exclusive interview with David Bassey for Dodger Talker.
It's Kershaw Day and the Big Apple, and we're joined right now by Dodger manager Dave Roberts.
Dave, thanks a lot for the time.
Hey Dave, good to catch up and another exciting night, Yeah it is.
It's always great to be in New York.
And as far as coming back to City Field, I know we always talk about the World Series, but what stands out to you the most about the NLCS last year?
You know what?
I think the thing that stands out most is Walker striking out Lin d'Or with a three to two curveball. I think show hey hit a huge homer. Just the energy, there, a lot of good memories. I'm sure they're going to be looking to get some redemption and payback, but it's going to be a great series.
The NLCS was just an encapsulation of how much you leaned on your bullpen, and this year you're kind of feeling the residual effect of the way that you needed to use those guys to win.
The World Series.
How are you right now with your bullpen now? And I guess that's a price that you're willing to pay. And they were willing to pay.
Yeah, you know, I think if you look back at that series and even that Padre series, I think it was Game three that we sort of had to kind of hang in there and use the bullpen to kind of get to the next day. We did that obviously at City Field in the CUS. Right now, it's certainly
not ideal coming off and off day. I feel much better about the state of our pen, the pitching, but I think that as we look out, and I think Clayton coming into his second one, I'm going to be a little bit more mindful as far as the usage.
But I think the other guys who've gotten their feet wet, I'm going to push them because you know, obviously we need to win baseball games, but these guys have got to go deeper in games, and they've got to kind of take a little bit of the strain off the pen, who have certainly been tax in the first couple months.
Kershaw talked about having a lack of commit but he was happy with his stuff. Do you feel like both will get better with time?
I do, And I think and I even told Clayton this after this outing is I think I would be more concerned if the stuff wasn't there, that we don't have enough to work with. But the stuff was there, so I feel and I think he echoes that feels good about that. And command is something that he's always been able to navigate and manage and have. So yeah, after the first one, I do think that the command's going to continue to get better.
Manager Dave Roberts, two time manager World Champion, is our guest when you look at your bullpen and your pitching staff, I know it's hard to say who's the most valuable or who's the best, but would you say Benk Caspirius has been more valuable than anybody outside of these walls would have expected?
Oh?
Absolutely.
I think that this is a guy that came on the scene last year and pitched in big ball games. But the leverage innings, the amount of innings that he's given us stability, which, to be quite frank, we haven't really had that in the pitching. So for a guy that's got call it three months of service to be a stabilizer has been huge for us.
He seems to be very open to the different versatile spots that you have for him.
Yeah, and I think that's a good thing. I think some of it is youthfulness, naivete, just happy to be in the big leagues where there's a complete buy in. But I do think that he is understanding that his openness and willingness to do different things allows for a lot of ability to plug some holes and to protect and help us win baseball games. And so I just kind of put him in that high leverage bucket and use him as a Swiss army knife.
All right, Dave, I'm gonna throw something at you that I get thrown at. And it's a valid question. With all those starting pitching injuries, has there been an urge among yourself and the group in the front office to maybe accelerate Otani coming back to pitch?
And how do you resist that?
You know the shortand no, I think that show hey, doctor elatross a training staff for all driving this sort of ramp up progression. I think it's separate. It's a separate issue, and I think that you know one part of it, or that I guess the main part of it is his value to us as a hitter as it is, as it stands, is so valuable, right, And so to try to speed something up to take on some type of downside just doesn't make sense. So I do think that we are being very methodical about it.
I can safely say he's probably not going to pitch for us until after the break. But I don't think that the injuries that we've had is going to speed up his process.
You played against and with Barry Bonds. Did you ever think you would say what you said as far as Otani being in the same sentence with him.
No, I didn't know. Barry was number one with a bullet as far as by far, the best baseball player I've ever played with, ever seen. But now you laren what Showhy can do with foot speed, with power, with average, but also the pitching. And I think that's something that you know, you're you're trying to grate out the whole player in totality, where I can't believe I'm saying that, but yeah, show Hey in totality is a better baseball player because you can pitch.
Hey, You've seen a lot of baseball and you're not done. You've seen a lot of things and a lot of great players and looking forward to more of a great season.
Thanks a lot for the time.
Thanks Dave, good having you and good being on with you and uh let's have a great series.