Dave Roberts has walked this tightrope before.

Managing big-name closers at the back end of his bullpen. Watching them struggle with performances far below expectations. Having to figure out how much leash he is willing to extend, and when the time for a change is ultimately needed.

“Every year, when somebody’s struggling, [people are] always like, ‘You gotta take them out. You gotta move the role,’” Roberts said in an interview with The California Post on Friday. “But, no matter what, I have to be the person that doesn’t overreact. I have to wait longer than everyone wants to. I have to.”

That, indeed, is the position in which Roberts finds himself once again this season, trying to manage $69 million offseason signing Edwin Díaz through what has become a prolonged 2026 slump.

On Thursday, the veteran closer who was hand-picked this offseason by the club to address its ninth-inning problems instead delivered nothing but further late-game headaches.

He squandered a two-run lead in the Dodgers’ 5-4 loss to the Milwaukee Brewers. He blew his third save opportunity since returning from a three-month absence following a late April elbow procedure. He saw his ERA rise over 11.00 and calls for his demotion from the closer role grow deafening.

On Friday night, Díaz returned to the mound and converted a save in the Dodgers’ 3-1 win, but not before loading the bases on a hit-batter and two walks and needing clutch defensive plays behind him from Tommy Edman and Kiké Hernández to escape.

“It wasn’t pretty. I watched the inning too,” Roberts said afterward. “But he found a way to make a pitch when he needed to.”

Thus, his tenure as Dodgers closer will live to see another day.

Really, Díaz’s spot in the ninth was not under imminent threat, at least not yet.

In the wake of Thursday’s loss, Roberts made that much clear with a defiant answer when asked about a possible switch.

While the skipper cited Díaz’s track record for the decision –– the 32-year-old is a three-time All-Star and Reliever of the Year Award winner –– he also made a rhetorical comment that enflamed an already frustrated fan base.

“Give me another option,” Roberts snapped when asked about potentially removing Díaz from the closer role. “I have to have other options. And to be quite honest, none of those [other] guys really are throwing the baseball great. So that’s just kind of the way it is.”

Statistically, of course, pretty much everyone in the Dodgers’ bullpen has been more productive than Díaz this year.

That’s been especially true of their top two left-handers: Tanner Scott, a fellow big-money signing two winters ago who lost the closer’s role during a disastrous 2025 campaign, but has bounced back this year by posting a 2.20 ERA with 16 saves (most of which he accumulated during Díaz’s stint on the injured list); and Alex Vesia, who has a 2.79 ERA across a team-high 54 appearances this season.

“The body of work for Tanner, Vesia … I get it, I see it,” Roberts said Friday, softening his tone during his pregame interview with the California Post.

However, Roberts noted there were other factors at play.

Reiterating his point from Thursday, he noted that the rest of the bullpen hasn’t been sharp recently, with Vesia’s walk rate spiking and Scott missing fewer bats and giving up more hard contact (including a near-home run to Christian Yelich in the eighth inning on Thursday).

More than that, Roberts added after a day of reflection, he simply wasn’t ready to pull the plug on Díaz closing games yet, either.

“I’m willing to, at some point,” Roberts conceded. “I just don’t want to do it now. Because there’s a part of it where, I need to show him that I believe in him [and] what he signed up for –– until I can’t.”

Roberts had to make similar calculations with Scott last year, and Craig Kimbrel back in 2022.

Both of them had been brought in via blockbuster deals to fill voids at closer. Both eventually lost their ninth-inning jobs by the end of the season.

With Díaz, however, the Dodgers are still confident in reaching a different outcome, hopeful they’ve found something in his delivery to rectify his inconsistent season.

Díaz’s arm angle has dropped considerably this year, from 19 degrees a season ago (and 23 degrees during his peak years with the Mets) down to 15 degrees in the 14 outings he had made entering Friday.

Because of that, the right-hander’s pitches had lost their usual shape. His slider was too flat, lacking enough late downward bite to keep hitters from squaring it up. His fastball wasn’t riding up in the zone either, lacking its typically deceptive rising movement and too often staying in the heart of the plate.

“I’m too east-to-west, instead of north-south,” Díaz told the California Post of his pitch shapes.

Dodgers coaches addressed the problem with Díaz before Friday’s game, reveiwing film of his mechanics from past seasons and identifying a posture tweak to get his arm back in the right place.

“My upper body is sometimes leaning too much to third base,” Díaz told the California Post. “So I’m trying to stay up [with my upper body] when I throw the ball.”

Assistant pitching coach Connor McGuiness then filmed each throw Díaz made during afternoon catch play in the outfield, coming away encouraged that progress was already being made.

“When I’m north-south, I can see the hitters don’t have a chance,” Díaz said. “Today I made a lot of good pitches north to south. Even the ones I was missing, I was throwing my slider down.”

For now, that will have to count as a step forward for Díaz –– who overcame his shaky command to end the game on a well-executed 98 mph fastball that jammed Joey Ortiz on the inside corner.

“I wanted to see him try to fight through it and get through it,” Roberts said, “so I was happy that he finished what he started.”

In the coming days, the Dodgers’ goal will be to further refine his mechanics and get his delivery back where it used to be.

In the coming weeks, they’re banking on it being enough to help him turn the page on his season, and cement what remains a currently tenuous hold on the team’s all-important ninth-inning duties.

“Hopefully with a couple days off to work through [his delivery changes],” Roberts said, “we’ll see a better version [of him] going forward.”

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