Dodgers' Dave Roberts admits to calculated response to Manny Machado

Los Angeles Dodgers manager Dave Roberts admitted he was playing some mind games during the National League Division Series against the San Diego Padres.

Roberts confessed after his team won Game 5 of the NLDS on Friday that his critical comments about Manny Machado following Game 2 were intentional, and meant to deflect pressure away from his players. The Dodgers manager praised Machado and essentially said he’d publicly overreacted on purpose to make that incident the primary talking point instead of the play of his team.

“It was. It was,” Roberts said when asked if his reaction was calculated, according to Ken Rosenthal of The Athletic. “As a manager, you never want to make it about you. But I just felt in that situation, if we could take it off our guys a little bit … Manny and I have a really good relationship. I would take him any day. But I don’t think that diversion was a bad thing for our guys. And they responded by having my back.”

Following a 10-2 Padres win in Game 2, Roberts went out of his way to accuse Machado of intentionally throwing a baseball at him during the game, calling the incident “unsettling” and “disrespectful.” Video later emerged that seemed to indicate the incident was nowhere near as dangerous as Roberts made it out to be. Roberts, it seems, knew as much all along.

Machado’s actions were definitely the major talking point heading into Game 3, so from that standpoint, Roberts’ gambit worked. The Dodgers still lost that game, however, and the conversation had largely died out prior to a do-or-die Game 4. Despite the pressure, the Dodgers went on to win that game in a blowout before stifling the Padres at Dodger Stadium in Game 5.