Managing is hard

I don't think anyone in the baseball world can honestly say they saw Lobaton being the hero today. That's the beauty of playoff baseball. Any time you have a team built for 162 games cram the most important ones into 5, there's a ton of variance. That's why I've always believed that it's the GMs job to build a team designed to withstand 162 games to get into the playoffs, and then it's the manager's job to guide that team through. That's why Dusty Baker deserves more credit than anyone else on the Nationals yesterday. Let's dig into the game.

Dusty is managing his bullpen perfectly. That's nearly 9 innings of scoreless baseball spun now by the pen in this series. With Roark struggling today, Dusty pulled him at the perfect time. Tanner still almost threw 5 innings and gave up only 2 runs, which is remarkable when you consider that he gave up 10 baserunners. Dusty then trusted Rzepczynski for over an inning and got nothing but zeros there, then Treinen looked like a dominant set-up man before Melancon slammed the door. Not to mention he made the gutsy and unpopular call of starting Lobaton over Severino, resulting in a huge 3 run blast and an even series. This game should be marked down as a win for the manager. Whether you agree with him letting Rzepczynski face three righties or not (which I generally don't), results are all that matter in the postseason and he's gotten nothing but positives from the bullpen.

Trea Turner is still a menace. That's pretty obvious but you really saw the value he provides to the team today. His strikeouts continue to be an issue, as he know has 5 in only two games. But he singled twice, swiped a bag, and scored a run. Both times he got on base, you saw the Dodgers pitchers really have to slow the game down, vary their looks, and have their timing thrown off in an attempt to keep Turner on base. It worked out well for Hill in the third, as his quick pitch to Werth froze him for a big strikeout. But next time up, we saw Hill unable to keep Turner at second, resulting in him later scoring on a Murphy single. If Trea continues to get on base in LA, the runs should keep coming.

The series really gets interesting now. The Dodgers are horrible against lefties so the matchup for tomorrow has to look favorable. It's not a must-win, but it's close. A loss there would set up an elimination game against Kershaw and even though he struggled in game 1, I wouldn't bet against him again. Historically, the winner of game 3 in a 1-1 tie in a best of 5 series wins the series almost every time. Gio needs to go deep into the game and put up some early zeros. Both games have found the Nats in an early hole so an early lead is key. Let's see how it goes.