The gamesmanship continues.
Dodgers manager Dave Roberts isn’t calling it that — in fact he’s refuted the notion. And Giants skipper Gabe Kapler isn’t calling it that either. But c’mon.
On Thursday at 6:07 p.m., the Los Angeles Dodgers and San Francisco Giants will face off for the all the marbles in Game 5 of the NLDS. The Dodgers were originally slated to start Julio Urias, a lefty who won 20 games in the regular season, but on Thursday morning, Roberts and the team announced a flip-flop and will instead start right-handed reliever Corey Knebel.
The change of heart, which presumably is to flummox the Giants’ predominately right-handed lineup, has unleashed a mountain of takes and conspiracies. WHAT ARE THE DODGERS REALLY PLANNING? HOW LONG WILL KNEBEL ACTUALLY PITCH?
No one knows, including Kapler. To his credit, he’s playing this high-stakes game of, uh, baseball poker with an elite poker face.
“It’s understandable,” Kapler said of the pitcher swap on Thursday, to which a bunch of Giants and Dodgers fans responded, “No it’s not!!!”
Kapler continued to reporters, “I don’t think it was unexpected. Certainly changed the way we looked at the game, but nothing out of the ordinary.”
Allegedly, Roberts texted Kapler last night as a heads up, presumably an unwritten rule of MLB. But even if Kapler had an extra night’s worth of sleep to assess the pitching swap, and even though both mangers are playing it cool, this is still an unexpected and highly risky maneuver.
Kapler downplaying it is, without question, the best possible response — both for nervous fans and to reassure his clubhouse. Now we wait to see which manager’s tactics are proven right.
