The Los Angeles Dodgers were shut out by Michael King and the San Diego Padres on Monday night despite multiple opportunities to score and tie the game in their 1-0 loss.
One of those key moments came in the sixth inning. Hyeseong Kim and Shohei Ohtani each reached on base hits, but on Ohtani’s infield single, Padres catcher Rodolfo Durán threw the ball into shallow right field.
Kim was heading to third base at the time and started to round the bag, but Dodgers third base coach Dino Ebel held him up. Fernando Tatis Jr. was about to pick up the ball to throw home, but he didn’t field it cleanly before getting the ball back into the infield.
Fans on social media criticized Ebel for holding up Kim. Still, Dodgers manager Dave Roberts decided to back his third base coach, via Bill Plunkett of the Southern California News Group.
“It’s kind of the timing of it where Tatis came up with the ball and Dino’s got to make the decision. You don’t know that he’s not going to come up with it clean,” Roberts said. “At that point in time, to be quite honest, Dino had the best view of the runner coming in, Kim, and where they were at on the field.
“So it’s one of those things, I’m definitely not going to second-guess it. It’s one of those that, yeah, it’s unfortunate. Two outs. If we know something different, he probably would have done something different. But that’s a hard one.”
The bobble from Tatis made it appear to be a questionable decision by Ebel, but further replays shown on SportsNet LA suggested it would have been a close play even with fielding mistake. With the benefit of hindsight and replays, it’s easy to say Ebel should have tested it and sent Kim, given the close score and the offense’s struggles.
But at the time of the play, Ebel had to make a split-second decision without knowing Tatis would bobble the ball. If Tatis had fielded it cleanly, Kim likely would’ve been thrown out by a significant margin. Unless there was a throwing error, and that would’ve created its own different criticisms of Ebel.
Perhaps Ebel could have let the play develop a little more before putting up the stop sign, but given MLB’s enforcement on base coach positioning, it would’ve been difficult for him to get down the line that quickly while still reading the play to allow for more time to make the send or hold decision.
Ultimately, Kim was stranded at third base when Mookie Betts popped up on the first pitch he saw, further fueling frustrations against Ebel from fans. The Dodgers hitters also failed to capitalize on multiple opportunities to score runs, so most of the blame for the loss should fall on them, regardless.
Dave Roberts previously supported Dino Ebel
In 2022, Ebel was the center of criticism over a decision to send a runner, and Roberts expressed his full support for the third base coach.
“It was tough,” Roberts said at the time. “I know Dino is going to wear this one, but I’m not going to waver in my confidence. It’s one of those positions on the field where when you do things well, no one talks about it. “But if it doesn’t go well, you’re the center of attention.
Roberts went on to add: “He’s as good as there is.”
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