Hernández: Dodgers, Angels shooting for it all this season

Three days earlier than his crew opens its season, Dodgers supervisor Dave Roberts was provided an opportunity to stroll again his assure of a championship.

He declined.

“Shouldn’t that be my take?” Roberts mentioned.

On the bench on the alternative facet of the sphere, Angels counterpart Joe Maddon was requested an open-ended query about his crew’s expectations.

He reached for the sky.

“Successful all of it,” Maddon mentioned. “Successful a World Sequence.”

Because the Dodgers and Angels method opening day, the main target was on their gamers, and rightfully so.

However the Dodgers are about greater than Mookie Betts and Freddie Freeman, simply because the Angels are about greater than Shohei Ohtani and Mike Trout.

The groups are additionally in regards to the males who lead them.

The Dodgers are daring, like Roberts. The Angels aren’t afraid to voice what their most devoted followers are wishing for them, like Maddon.

Talking earlier than the Freeway Sequence finale on Tuesday at Dodger Stadium, Roberts displayed the identical fearlessness he used as a job participant on the Boston Crimson Sox to execute essentially the most well-known steal in baseball historical past.

Roberts, who agreed to a three-year extension final month, didn’t simply refuse to retract the championship assure he made just lately on “The Dan Patrick Present.”

He doubled down on his prediction.

“For me to place it on the market and consider that that is what’s going to occur, I feel it’s very highly effective,” Roberts mentioned.

He didn’t make the assure to attract consideration to himself. He did so to take care of the tradition of accountability he has created.

“It raises the bar for myself and everybody that’s part of the Dodgers,” Roberts mentioned. “I feel that, in life or in something, while you give your self an out, there’s a straightforward exit. I feel that for me, figuring out this crew, this group, I really feel for me to place myself on the market, put our crew on the market and say, ‘I can assure we’re going to be the final crew standing,’ I don’t need to stroll it again. I consider in these guys.”

Making the declaration was the straightforward half.

“The toughest half to do is now, each single day, get higher, and win sufficient baseball video games to place ourselves in that place, to perform our aim,” Roberts mentioned. “However there’s no strolling issues again.”

The Dodgers are as soon as once more World Sequence favorites. They’ve reached the postseason in every of their earlier six seasons underneath Roberts. They’ve made the playoffs in every of the final 9 years.

How can the Dodgers make this outdated story new?

Roberts is asking on them to alter how they view themselves, in essence to find their internal Dave Roberts.

Pointing to how they have been eradicated within the Nationwide League Championship Sequence by the Atlanta Braves after ending second to the San Francisco Giants within the NL West, Roberts mentioned, “We’re not the Nationwide League champions. We’re not the Nationwide League West champions. We’re not defending World Sequence champions. So, for us to suppose that we’re at all times on it, I’d argue that we higher flip the narrative and the script and higher begin being hungry.”

About an hour later, on the opposite facet of the diamond, Maddon dreamed about what the Angels may very well be.

He dreamed like he did when he managed the Chicago Cubs in 2016 to their first World Sequence championship in 108 years.

“Your expectation, your aim, is to get to the playoffs,” Maddon mentioned. “When you’ve gotten there, you need to play the final recreation of the yr and win it. To method any season with out that mindset, then why even do it?”

Angels’ Shohei Ohtani thought he was getting a stroll however struck out as an alternative within the first inning towards the Dodgers throughout a spring coaching recreation at Dodger Stadium on Tuesday.

(Myung J. Chun / Los Angeles Instances)

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Maddon, who’s within the last yr of his three-year contract, was instructed of how Roberts repeated his assure and was requested if he needed to do the identical.

“I’m not that … I don’t know if the phrase’s daring,” Maddon mentioned with a chuckle.

The Angels gained 77 video games final yr with Trout taking part in 36 video games and Anthony Rendon 58. Of MLB’s 30 groups, 12 might be a part of an expanded postseason subject this yr. If Ohtani, Trout and Rendon are wholesome, why couldn’t the Angels be one in every of them and attain the playoffs for the primary time in eight years?

“I do consider we’re going to make the playoffs,” Maddon mentioned. “I’ll say that. And after that, our aim is to win all of it.”

There was full of life chatter within the Angels’ clubhouse, which Maddon seen as a optimistic growth.

“Our guys come and play the sport correctly,” he mentioned. “There’s no purpose we are able to’t proceed that. And all of it begins inside.”

Maddon credited second-year GM Perry Minasian for contributing to the improved work setting.

“There’s a really blunt honesty about what’s occurring, from the highest to under,” Maddon mentioned. “The gamers like it. They know precisely what’s occurring with every one in every of them. There’s no grey areas in any way. With that, I feel all people can go on the market with a transparent thoughts and simply do their jobs.”

Maddon continued, “There’s lots of people that don’t just like the phrase tradition. You don’t prefer it since you don’t perceive it. Proper now, the tradition’s flipping.”

If this sounds hokey, properly, it’s as a result of it’s. However Maddon has modified the tradition of organizations earlier than, when he reworked the Tampa Bay Rays into perennial contenders and the Cubs into champions. He’s making an attempt to do the identical with the Angels, to show them into the type of crew about which ensures are made.