With Tarik Skubal trending up and Edwin Díaz trending down, the Dodgers are headed to the postseason yet again

CINCINNATI — Dodgers manager Dave Roberts is not one to beat around the bush.

Most MLB skippers, when asked an incisive question in a pregame scrum, volley back an evasive answer. Such is the job. These conduits between club and public are incentivized to deflect, obscure, shield. Uncomfortable truths are better left unshared — or, at the very least, danced around. It's better to be cliché than inflammatory. Protecting the players and their egos is paramount. This dynamic can be even more apparent in the larger markets, where one misstep can spark a torrent of headlines.

But Roberts, with three rings and more than 1,000 wins on his managerial ledger, utilizes a different approach. He is honest to a fault and beyond it.

On Monday, Roberts settled into the visiting dugout at Great American Ballpark and trained his flamethrower of forthrightness on the Dodgers' beleaguered $69 million closer, Edwin Díaz .

"He needs to pitch better. It hasn't been good," Roberts replied when asked about Díaz's two-out, five-run outing in Triple-A on Sunday.

Asked if there's a scenario in which the woebegone closer, who owns a 11.85 ERA in just 16 big-league appearances this season, doesn't make the postseason roster, Roberts was unequivocal.

"Yeah. We have to go with our best pitchers. ... My bet is that he will be, but you know, again, there's gotta be some kind of evidence or something for us, again, to sort of bet on. My bet is yes, but we still got to see something."

Then, less than an hour before first pitch, came more bad news regarding Los Angeles ' bullpen. Edgardo Henriquez , the club's most effective relief option over the past few months, was placed on the IL due to low back discomfort. He's set to miss the remainder of the regular season. Imaging should reveal whether a postseason return is possible. Either way, Henriquez's absence represents yet another blow to a Dodger 'pen that has been middle-of-the-pack for most of the year.

But those late-game pitching concerns will carry much, much less weight if Tarik Skubal keeps pitching like he did on Monday.

Los Angeles' star trade-deadline acquisition delivered his best start yet in this lighter shade of blue, striking out nine Reds while not allowing a single run. He needed just 90 pitches across seven innings to produce his first scoreless showing as a Dodger. Throughout the night, Skubal leaned heavily on his four-seamer, running his highest usage on the pitch since September 2024.

After the game, Skubal admitted that perhaps he'd been overthinking things a bit as he acclimated to his new world.

"A lot of the struggle has kind of been me versus me," the left-handed hoss explained to a sizable gaggle of media. "Thinking too much out there. Not competing the way I want to compete. Thinking too much about pitch selection. Trying to be too fine at times and not challenging guys."

A simpler, heat-forward approach proved productive against the Reds. And Skubal, after a whirlwind summer of upheaval, finally seems to be settling into the new digs. Hours before his start, the two-time Cy Young winner strolled through the GABP visitors clubhouse mouthing along to Fetty Wap's "Trap Queen" as the ditty bounced from the locker room speakers.

Later, he complimented the support and game-planning staff for bringing him along. He also shared that he shook off catcher Will Smith just once against the Reds, a sign of trust within the battery.

Perhaps most importantly, Skubal's evening offered a worthwhile reminder that the Dodgers' best solution for their bullpen problems likely lies in their otherworldly rotation.

This L.A. bullpen is no worse off than it was a year ago, when three of the club's five most used relievers in the postseason — Roki Sasaki , Emmet Sheehan and Tyler Glasnow — were starters during the regular season. The strategy worked, if just barely, and there's every reason to expect the Dodgers to deploy it again, considering that their 2026 rotation is definitively better.

Barring an 11th-hour injury, these Dodgers will wield a comically imposing October rotation of Skubal, Yoshinobu Yamamoto , Blake Snell and Glasnow. That quartet should hoover up its fair share of innings, putting less strain on what looks to be a makeshift, though potentially effective, bullpen.

Sasaki, currently on the IL but expected to return soon, and All-Star Justin Wrobleski will take up residence in the bullpen once September ends. Most likely, so too will Sheehan, who contributed massively important relief innings a year ago. They'll be joined by relief stalwarts such as Alex Vesia , Evan Phillips and Blake Treinen . The ninth likely belongs to Tanner Scott , who, after a disastrous, Díaz-like first Dodgers season in 2025, has recovered to the tune of a 2.91 ERA in 64 games.

It's not lockdown. It's not Plan A. But it's a talented group capable of weathering the storm in a Díaz-less world. That's how things played out Monday after Skubal departed the ballgame. Vesia tossed a scoreless eighth. Phillips allowed a Kentucky-bound, 457-foot solo shot to Elly De La Cruz but emerged from the ninth otherwise unscathed. Los Angeles took the 4-1 win , one that secured the Dodgers a playoff berth for the 14th consecutive season .

That's a remarkable run, one worthy of acknowledgement. So after the victory, Roberts toasted the team in a tasteful, understated ceremony. There were no suds, no goggles, no drunken rowdiness. Just a few plastic champagne glasses and some honest words of encouragement from an honest man with high standards.

"The message was, you know, we've accomplished a lot to this point," Roberts said. "All the while, not playing our best baseball."