After the New York Mets accused the Los Angeles Dodgers of stealing signs, LA’s manager, Dave Roberts, downplayed the allegations.
The New York Mets were a little confused at how they lost in heartbreaking fashion on Wednesday night. In so many words, manager Mickey Callaway and the Mets accused the Los Angeles Dodgers of stealing signs.
While they stopped short of accusing the Dodgers of cheating, they insinuated that LA was a step ahead. Dodgers manager Dave Roberts spoke after the Dodgers’ 2-0 victory on Thursday and downplayed the allegations.
“To be quite honest, I really don’t care what they think,” Roberts said to Ken Gurnick and Anthony DiComo of MLB.com. “I know that we play within the constructs of the rules. We prepare really well, we have really good players and we compete every pitch. So, to think we are doing any other undercover-op thing, wow. I don’t know. I don’t know.”
First off, the Mets should worry a little more about the sorry state of their bullpen rather than what the Dodgers are doing. Blaming sign stealing is such a cheap cop-out from the coaching staff.
Callaway was perplexed by the way the Dodgers were handling good pitches from Noah Syndergaard. Callaway seemed to think the explanation was some form of sign stealing. However, it’s entirely possible that the Dodgers coaching staff simply prepared their players better for the four-game series.
The Mets had a golden opportunity to win a series against one of the best teams in all of baseball. Instead, they self-imploded on Wednesday and failed to score a run on Thursday. All in all, the sign-stealing allegations were an unnecessary distraction conjured up by Callaway and his bench coach, Jim Riggleman.