If so, the team better hope that, when the real postseason begins, they play more like they did in Friday’s series-opening win than Saturday’s 8-5 loss.
If Friday showed all the ways the Dodgers can excel come October, Saturday revealed some of their lingering weak spots.
They got an ineffective outing from Julio Urías, who gave up six runs in six innings to snap his recent run of strong starts.
They couldn’t capitalize on several late opportunities at the plate, a squandered bases-loaded opportunity in the top of the eighth most glaring of all.
And they lost their temper in a sold-out, amped-up environment, with Roberts and Max Muncy getting ejected after the eighth inning ended on a missed third strike call.
Extrapolating too much for a late August series, of course, can be a tenuous exercise — especially from a series like this weekend’s that is defined by long-awaited homecomings and awkward reunions between several players, Mookie Betts and Justin Turner chief among them, and their old teams.
Nonetheless, Saturday put the first-place Dodgers in one of the higher-pressure situations they’re likely to face as they run out the rest of the regular season.
And though they remain a stellar 20-4 in the month of August, and miles ahead of the rest of the division, there were lessons to be learned about the state of their team.
Urias’ performance was the biggest subplot.
For five innings, the left-hander was cruising, holding the Red Sox to just two runs while racking up eight strikeouts.
But then, in the bottom of the sixth, his outing fell apart.
(Michael Dwyer / Associated Press)
Adam Duvall hit a three-run homer, getting just enough on his 353-foot fly ball to get over the Green Monster.
Urías was also punished for a rare walk, suffering a lapse of execution in the at-bat after Duvall’s blast. That free pass led to the inning’s fourth run on an RBI single from Reese McGuire. By the time the frame ended, the Red Sox had turned a 4-2 deficit into a 6-4 lead.
The game was a microcosm of Urías up-and-down season, leaving last year’s Cy Young Award finalist with a career-worst 4.41 earned-run average.
At times, he has looked spectacular, including a four-start stretch leading up to Saturday’s contest in which he went 4-0 with a 1.44 ERA.
But for a Dodgers team that will need the 27-year-old pending free agent to carry their rotation in the playoffs, Urías’ inconsistent production remains a troublesome subplot.
Despite that, the Dodgers still almost rallied.
Trailing 7-4 entering the eighth, they got one run back on an RBI single from Betts (one of his three hits on the day). A Freddie Freeman walk in the next at-bat loaded the bases with only one out.
From there, however, the rally fizzled, with a couple of the Dodgers’ B-tier stars coming up empty in important spots.
Will Smith weakly flied out to shallow right field, continuing his August slump with an unproductive out.
Then, Muncy took his controversial third strike, rung up on an 0-and-2 splitter that was well below the strike zone.
Muncy initially survived a two-handed heave of his bat, but was eventually ejected by home plate umpire Jordan Baker after continuing to argue the call. Roberts was also tossed after running on the field and objecting to the call, earning his first ejection of the season.
The Dodgers had one last chance in the ninth, when Betts came to the plate with the bases and two outs, representing the potential go-ahead run.
His last-gasp drive to center wasn’t deep enough, however, handing the Dodgers a rare loss — and a reminder that, even amid their streaking performance in August, they’re still far from invincible.