Dodgers vs. Mets: Dave Roberts knows urgency is needed in closeout games, but he didn’t show it in NLCS Game 5

NEW YORK — Two decades ago Dodgers manager Dave Roberts was part of the greatest comeback in baseball history. The Red Sox, spurred by Roberts’ stolen base in Game 4, erased a 3-0 series deficit against the Yankees in the 2004 ALCS. Roberts knows how quickly a series can turn. That’s why, going into Game 5 of the NLCS on Friday, he said the Dodgers would play with urgency with a chance to close out the Mets and punch their ticket to the World Series.

“I think you can see from kind of my demeanor that we’re playing with urgency tonight,” Roberts said before Game 5. “I think you can see that things can happen when a team starts to build momentum. So, yeah, we want to kind of take our momentum and keep it going, put these guys away. Because of my past experiences — and unfortunately I was on the good side of the other thing — but, yeah, I feel that. I understand that.”

Once Game 5 began, that urgency was nowhere to be found. Dodgers starter Jack Flaherty went single, walk to open the first inning, then gave up a three-run homer to Pete Alonso, giving New York an early 3-0 lead. In Flaherty’s defense, Alonso hit a very good pitch. When a guy goes down and golfs a breaking ball below the zone out to center field, you have to tip your cap.

Flaherty never did settle down though in an eventual 12-6 loss. Working on normal rest following his terrific Game 1 start, Flaherty’s fastball sat around 90 mph in the first inning, and five of the first seven batters he faced reached base. Even the outs he recorded were loud. The game got away from the Dodgers in the third inning, when Flaherty walked the first two batters and later allowed three consecutive two-out hits. Starling Marte’s double down the left field line turned Game 5 into a laugher.

“He wasn’t sharp, clearly,” Roberts said about Flaherty after Game 5. “He’s been fighting something. He’s been under the weather a little bit. So I don’t know if that bled into the stuff, the velocity. I’m not sure. I haven’t talked to Jack.”

It was clear Flaherty did not have it in the first inning and he was fortunate to escape the second without a run scoring after Francisco Lindor hit a ball to the warning track. Roberts said “we’re playing with urgency tonight,” yet Anthony Banda did not begin warming up in the bullpen until after Flaherty walked a second straight batter to begin the third inning. Eventually, Banda sat down, and the bullpen was empty as Flaherty gave up those three straight two-out hits to put the game out of reach.

“We’re down 3-1 at the time and you can’t cover the game with leverage and being down (a few relievers). You’re trying to get some outs,” Roberts said. “And after the walks in that third inning and then Marte, you’re still at that point trying to cover seven innings. So he gives up the double. And so for me at 5-1 I’m not going to deploy our leverage guys knowing there’s a cost on the back end and appreciating the fact that there’s still more baseball to play in the series. Those are thoughts that went through my head. But I think for me, I have five leverage guys that I wanted to make sure that you gotta deploy at the right time.”

Francisco Alvarez’s single to left gave the Mets a 6-1 lead and that’s about when Roberts seemed to decide to save the bullpen, let Flaherty wear it, and get ready for Game 6. A Game 6 that will be a bullpen game for the Dodgers on Sunday. A good idea, in theory, except that Flaherty was done after three innings and 75 pitches, so he didn’t save the bullpen. Brent Honeywell did. Honeywell soaked up 4 2/3 innings on a season high 67 pitches. He surely will not be available for Sunday’s bullpen game.

In hindsight — and in real-time, I thought — Flaherty should have been done after Alvarez’s leadoff double in the second. One time through the order. The Mets were squaring him up consistently, the Dodgers were down only two runs at the time, and Mets lefty David Peterson looked shaky on the other side. Peterson threw 79 pitches and didn’t make it out of the fourth inning. The second inning was the time to get Flaherty out, keep the game close, and give an offense that scored 30 runs in Games 1-4 a chance to get back in it. You know, urgency.

And the thing is, the offense made it close anyway. Andy Pages hit two home runs, including a three-run shot in the fifth inning, and Mookie Betts went deep for the second straight day. A comfortable 10-2 Mets lead in the fourth inning became a tenuous 10-6 Mets lead by the sixth. New York added a run in the bottom of the sixth and one more in the eighth, once Honeywell was out of gas. Even after the Dodgers trimmed the deficit to a manageable four runs, their top relievers remained tucked away for Game 6.

The Mets eventually stretched their lead to 12-6 and Roberts stayed away from his highest-leverage relievers — Daniel Hudson, Michael Kopech, Evan Phillips, Blake Treinen — which is a silver lining. Game 5 was a winnable game though, much moreso than the final score would lead you to believe. New York’s middle relief has been shaky and being proactive — showing urgency — and pulling Flaherty when the wheels were shaking rather than complete off would have changed the game’s complexion completely.

In the end, the Dodgers remain in excellent position to win the pennant. They have a 3-2 series lead going home and, historically, teams with a 3-2 lead in a best-of-seven have gone on to win the series 69% of the time. The Dodgers still have two chances to win one game. It was three chances to win one game though, and the first chance was missed because the early innings were met with complacency rather than urgency. Roberts and the Dodgers lost the Game 5 battle in hopes of winning the war in Game 6.