dalton rushing

NEW YORK — Lost amid the headlines about Tarik Skubal, the Dodgers face this unexpected reality as the trade deadline looms: They would like to add a starting pitcher, but they need to add a catcher.

Will Smith has not played in six weeks. In a “best case” scenario, Dodgers manager Dave Roberts said Friday, Smith would miss another month.

That left Roberts to make a jolting admission, when I asked him if the team really can count on Smith returning this season.

“We don’t know,” Roberts said, “but we certainly are counting on it.”

Would it be nice for the Dodgers to get their three-time All-Star catcher back in time for October? Of course.

Should the Dodgers count on it? Of course not.

The Dodgers won’t know where Smith stands by the Aug. 3 trade deadline. That means now is the time to acquire a catching option they may or may not need later.

Dalton Rushing, the primary catcher in Smith’s absence, has a .799 OPS. Among the 24 major league catchers with at least 200 plate appearances entering play Friday, Rushing ranked fifth in OPS.

He is hitless in his last 13 at-bats. His batting average: .266 before Smith’s injury, .233 since then.

On defense, Rushing ranks next-to-last in defensive runs saved among major league catchers, ahead of only the Angels’ Logan O’Hoppe. On Friday, in the Dodgers’ 2-1 victory at Yankee Stadium, the Yankees scored their only run on Rushing’s passed ball.

In past Octobers, the Dodgers have prioritized defense at catcher. In the 2020 World Series, Austin Barnes caught ahead of Smith in four of the six games, including the final two.

In 2025, with Smith recovering from a hand injury, Ben Rortvedt started ahead of Rushing in the Dodgers’ first four postseason games. Rortvedt was a trade deadline acquisition last summer, picked up with pitcher Paul Gervase from the Tampa Bay Rays for catcher Hunter Feduccia.

Will Smith bats for the Dodgers against the San Francisco Giants on April 22.

(Ezra Shaw / Getty Images)

Rortvedt, currently playing in triple-A for the New York Mets, fits the profile of what the Dodgers need now: a defense-first catcher with major league readiness. With Smith injured, the Dodgers first tried and then cut minor league journeyman Chuckie Robinson at backup catcher. Their current backup, Eliezer Alfonso, made his major league debut in his ninth professional season; he is hitless in nine at-bats.

Could the Dodgers pursue an established catcher, say Ryan Jeffers of the Minnesota Twins or Francisco Alvarez or Luis Torrens of the New York Mets? Possible, but probably not necessary.

Rushing could be their guy. Smith could be back.

Smith has started and re-started baseball activities, only to find out that the inflamed disk in his neck flares up.

“He hasn’t been able to get over the hump,” Roberts said.

The Dodgers are trying another round of complete rest before asking him to try hitting or throwing again.

“We felt that, if he’s inactive, it gives it a good chance to get all the inflammation out, the soreness out, the pain, increase flexibility, all of it,” Roberts said. “Then he has a fighting chance to work his way back. Trying to do everything — even at a lesser dosage — just wasn’t feasible.”

Trying to trade for Skubal might not be feasible, at least so long as his Detroit Tigers remain in the American League wild-card race. The Tigers won seven of their final 10 games in the first half, and they face teams with losing records in 13 of their 16 second-half games ahead of the trade deadline, starting with the Angels this weekend in Anaheim.

The Dodgers do not need a depth starter. However, they might do well to find someone they would feel comfortable starting the third or fourth game of a playoff series, lest they count on Blake Snell (elbow) and Tyler Glasnow (back) and Shohei Ohtani (knee) all returning to the mound healthy and effective.

Important, yes. As important as another catcher, no.

For a team that will spend almost half a billion dollars on its player payroll and luxury tax this season, its most important trade deadline pickup could be a catcher making maybe $1 million.

Dodgers catcher Dalton Rushing spun to face home plate umpire Dan Iassogna, holding up his mitt with the ball inside.

When that didn’t change the safe call, Dalton immediately pointed to the Dodgers dugout, mask in hand urging manager Dave Roberts to challenge.

Robert’s hands flew up to his ears, asking for a replay review.

The tension in Dodger Stadium broke with the announcement: “The catcher touched the runner’s hand before he reached the plate…”

The crowd’s applause drowned out the rest.

The go-ahead run had been on the line with that challenge in the Dodgers’ eventual 8-7 win over the Rockies in 11 innings. And it started a wild sequence to the Dodgers’ first extra-innings game of the season that ended with Rushing hitting a walk-off single to center field to score Teoscar Hernández.

That brawl with the Rockies — figuratively and almost literally — finished with the Dodgers becoming the first team to win 60 games this season.

“That’s a lot of wins,” Roberts said.

It looked as if the Dodgers would coast to the mark. Dodgers closer Tanner Scott took the mound in the ninth with a three-run lead. But after giving up an RBI double to Kyle Karros and a two-run double to Cole Carrigg the score was tied. Only a strong relay throw home by second baseman Miguel Rojas and a successful challenge prevented Hunter Goodman from scoring a go-ahead run.

In the bottom of the ninth, the Dodgers got runners on first and second with two outs. That brought up Andy Pages with two outs, but a successful Rockies ABS challenge confirmed a strikeout, sending the game into the 10th.

That ended the Dodgers’ streak of 91 games without extra innings, the second-longest a team has gone without playing an extra-inning game in the modern era, behind only the 2005 Red Sox (99).

The drama wasn’t over. Two batters into the 10th, the benches cleared.

With one out and Carrigg on third, Jake McCarthy hit a sharp ground ball to Dodgers first baseman Freddie Freeman, who stepped on the bag and fired home.

Rushing flung his body into the tag, but Carrigg was called safe.

Carrigg said something as began to walk away, and Rushing spun around.

As the two exchanged words, Dodgers reliever Edgardo Henriquez pulled his catcher away. But players from both dugouts and bullpens already began to spill onto the field.

Dodgers third baseman Max Muncy holds back Dalton Rushing after the Dodgers catcher got into a confrontation with Colorado’s Cole Carrigg in the 10th inning Monday.

(Ronaldo Bolanos / Los Angeles Times)

“I think that what happened is Carrigg said something aloud, not directed at Dalton,” Roberts said. “Dalton thought something was directed at him. We cleared the air. Basically a big misunderstanding.”

Said Rushing: “I didn’t mean any harm by the tag or the way I reacted to the ball. Made sure he knew that. Told him I was just reacting to the baseball. I don’t expect it to go any further.”

After a brief stoppage, Henriquez escaped without further damage. And the Dodgers got another shot, with Pages on second to start the inning.

Freeman’s groundout moved him to third. Then Mookie Betts drove him in with a comebacker over the mound and past flailing second baseman Edouard Julien.

Tucker then looped a single into no-man’s land. But the rally ended when Hernández’s liner up the middle landed in the glove of Rockies right-hander Jimmy Herget, who just entered the game, catching Kyle Tucker off first base for a double play.

In the 11th, Henriquez got out of the inning unscathed. He got Julien to pop out on a sacrifice bunt attempt and then started a double play himself. He punched the air as he walked off the mound.

“He’s calm in big spots, you’re starting to see it,” Roberts said. “He’s throwing strikes, throwing the breaking ball when he needs to and he’s now unfazed by certain moments and higher leverage. He’s a guy, certainly, we trust.”

In the end, Rushing — who already hit a pair of doubles and scored on Shohei Ohtani’s third-inning home run and fourth-inning two-run single — was the hero.

After Hernández made it to third on a sacrifice bunt by Tommy Edman, Dalton got the end of his bat on a changeup and sent it up the middle, just out of reach of a diving Julien.

“Infield’s in, they’re kind of doing you a favor,” Rushing said. “So move the ball forward, good things happen. And it wasn’t pretty, but it worked.”

Rushing’s helmet twirled in the dirt behind him as he jogged from first toward the center of the field, ready for the celebration that would meet him there.

“He plays with a lot of moxie,” said Dodgers starting pitcher Eric Lauer, who held the Rockies to three runs in six innings. “And he definitely doesn’t back down to anybody, and we love him for that. He’s a great guy that you want on your team.”

Dodgers star Shohei Ohtani rounds the bases after hitting a two-run home run in the third inning against the Rockies on Monday.

(Ronaldo Bolanos / Los Angeles Times)

Roster moves

Dodgers right-hander Evan Phillips is in line to make his first major-league appearance since May 2025. Phillips only made seven appearances last season, starting on the injured list with a strained rotator cuff before undergoing Tommy John surgery in June.

“It’s going to be a lot different tonight getting back out there in a competitive game, the full atmosphere,” Phillips said. “Really excited about that. I feel like probably the past two weeks or so I really took a good turn in my rehab, started bouncing back even better, pitching more like myself, feeling more like myself. So really just happy to carry that over to these games and see how the second half treats us.”

In a pair of corresponding moves, the Dodgers optioned right-handed reliever Paul Gervase to triple-A Oklahoma City and released left-hander Jake Eder.

The Dodgers also designated catcher Chuckie Robinson for assignment and added right-hander Carlos Duran to the 40-man roster. Both players are set to stay in Oklahoma City, with Robinson accepting his outright assignment.

Dodgers two-way phenom Shohei Ohtani waddled through the clubhouse after the Dodgers’ 4-3 comeback victory against the Padres on Friday night, the bulging ice wraps around his left knee and right arm creating a penguin-like effect to his gait.

That in and of itself wasn’t noteworthy — ice after starts is a regular part of any pitcher’s recovery and arm care. But for Ohtani, the awkward wraps were reminders of one ailment he’s getting over, knee inflammation, and one that popped up Friday night — a right biceps problem.

“More precautionary reason,” Ohtani said through interpreter Will Ireton about being replaced by a pinch-hitter in the seventh inning. “I was a little concerned with my biceps with the last at-bat that I took.”

Ohtani limited the Padres (43-44) to three runs over 110 pitches when he stepped up to the plate in the sixth.

Teoscar Hernández hits a grand slam for the Dodgers against the San Diego Padres on Friday.

He worked a full count and then flew out to right field. Ohtani paused on his follow-through, his lips pursed, before jogging up the line.

“It’s the same location that I felt a couple months ago,” Ohtani said. “It went away relatively quickly, so I expect that to happen again.”

That Ohtani dealt with a biceps problem earlier this season was not disclosed before Friday. Even manager Dave Roberts said after the game that he had just learned about the previous ailment.

Ohtani will take off Saturday to recover, Roberts said. And Ohtani skipping his last pitching start before the All-Star break is “on the table.”

Ohtani was voted the starting designated hitter for the National League, marking his sixth straight All-Star selection. But even before Friday, it seemed unlikely he would pitch in the All-Star Game given his rotation schedule.

“He’s a quick healer, and finds a way to get back,” Roberts said. “But I do think that for us to read and react and hear what his body is telling him is really important, given the toll it takes on his body to be a two-way player.”

The injury concern replaced now-assuaged questions about Ohtani’s pairing with catcher Dalton Rushing with Will Smith (neck) on the injured list. Smith has at least resumed throwing and took swings Thursday, Roberts said, but he isn’t expected to return before the All-Star break.

The last time Rushing caught Ohtani, the pitcher took over pitch-calling after a disastrous second inning against the Twins last week.

“I just overthought last time,” Rushing said in a conversation with The Times on Thursday night. “I was trying to be perfect, and with a guy like that, you don’t have to be perfect. You just need to call the right pitches at the right time and allow his stuff to just beat them naturally. And that’s the plan [Friday]. Whether I call the pitch, he calls the pitch. I want to make sure we’re both convicted in what we’re throwing, and we can execute it to the best of our ability.”

On Friday, Ohtani handed back over pitch-calling duties, communicating with head shakes and nods instead of the PitchCom buttons on his arm.

Ohtani walked the first two batters he faced. But then he struck out three of the next four, escaping the jam down just 1-0, courtesy of an RBI single from Gavin Sheets.

That started a streak of 10 batters who Ohtani retired in order, fanning six of them.

“The best way that I can describe it is, if it ain’t broke, don’t fix it,” Rushing said when asked what he’d learned from following along last week. “That’s the way he pitches. … Trust what you do, trust how good his stuff is, and just go from there.”

Dodgers pitcher Shohei Ohtani, left, gets a fist bump from catcher Dalton Rushing during the first inning of a 4-3 win over the San Diego Padres at Dodger Stadium on Friday night.

(Gina Ferazzi / Los Angeles Times)

Ohtani’s back-to-back strikeouts to end the second inning were a good example. Against left-handed hitting Sung-Mun Song, he threw mostly four-seam fastballs and splitters, finishing off the six-pitch at-bat with a sweeper, according to Statcast.

Against right-handed hitting Rodolfo Durán, Ohtani threw mostly sinkers and sweepers, with one four-seamer mixed in out of seven pitches.

Ohtani eventually relented a second run with two outs in the fourth inning. He fell behind 0-2 in the count to Jackson Merrill, who flipped a strike call with an ABS challenge. Then Merrill hammered a fastball over the plate for a solo homer.

Ohtani successfully navigated traffic to throw a scoreless fifth, but Xander Bogaerts tagged him for an RBI double in the sixth.

“I think I did the bare minimum,” Ohtani said. “To get through six, to give the team the chance to win, keep the game in check. But there were some good and some bad.”

Ohtani gave up seven hits for a quality start that wasn’t his cleanest. The Dodgers (58-31), who had struggled to get anything going against Padres starter Michael King, were trailing 3-0 when Ohtani exited. But Teoscar Hernández took care of the deficit.

Teoscar Hernández hits a grand slam in the seventh inning of the Dodgers’ 4-3 win over the San Diego Padres at Dodger Stadium on Friday night.

(Gina Ferazzi / Los Angeles Times)

Facing reliever Adrian Morejon with the bases loaded and no outs in the seventh, Hernández ambushed a first-pitch slider.

“Knowing him, every pitch is hard,” Hernández said. “I was looking for the hardest one, the fastball, middle-in. But just reacted to that one in the middle of the plate.”

Hernández drifted up the first-base line as he watched the ball fly. When it landed, he launched his bat back toward the dugout, and it made it halfway there.

“I’m just trying to find the same swing that I had before I got hurt,” Hernández said. “And at the same time, just do something for the team. It happened to be a big swing.”

SACRAMENTO — Is this series worth hyping?

The Dodgers welcome their bitter rivals to Dodger Stadium on Thursday for what should be a big four-game series, but the San Diego Padres are a mess. They trail the Dodgers by 12 games in the National League West. Their best batter by WAR, according to Baseball Reference, is journeyman infielder Ty France.

The Dodgers lost a game Wednesday by six runs, 7-1 to the Athletics. The Padres lost a game by 20 runs.

However, standings and statistics be damned, the Dodgers are coming for the Padres, their closest pursers in the division even if “close” is relative. The Dodgers didn’t have to say anything out loud, but you could see it on the field Wednesday.

Shohei Ohtani was the scheduled starting pitcher, but the Dodgers pushed him back so he could face the Padres this weekend. The Padres will face Roki Sasaki on Thursday, Ohtani on Friday and Yoshinobu Yamamoto on Sunday.

And the Dodgers still won a series in Sacramento, behind Eric Lauer and Justin Wrobleski. Now comes a 10-game sprint to the All-Star break against division rivals, starting with the Padres.

“They’re all big for us,” Dodgers manager Dave Roberts said. “We try to take every series with the same importance, but obviously winning that series is the goal.”

For the final game of the Athletics series Wednesday, with Ohtani held back, the Dodgers used Jack Dreyer as a first-inning opener, then handed the ball to triple-A callup Charlie Barnes and told him to go as long as he could.

That did not go well and still went exactly according to plan.

In what was billed as a bullpen game, Barnes handled the final seven innings, leaving the varsity bullpen in fine shape for the Padres series.

“For him to be able to save everyone else puts us in a great position for the four games this weekend,” Roberts said.

The innings were not great. The first batter Barnes faced, Jonah Heim, deposited a 444-foot home run on the roof of the Dodgers’ clubhouse beyond the center-field fence.

The A’s bunched 11 hits over the first four innings against Barnes and his 90-mph fastball, and still the Dodgers gave Barnes the rest of the game, because a 12-game lead affords you the chance to sacrifice today in order to line up your pitching for your tomorrows.

In all, Barnes gave up seven runs and 12 hits, including three home runs. He did make a very reasonable 79 pitches over his seven innings.

Barnes, a 30-year-old still in search of his first major league victory, barely had a chance to take in the evening before Roberts told him immediately after the game that he would return to triple-A, with Paul Gervase coming up as a fresh arm.

“It’s tough for me to enjoy it when you give up seven,” Barnes said. “That’s part of the business. I did my job in providing length. Any time they need that or may want that, I’ll do my best to give it to them.”

This was not all on Barnes, to be sure. When Wrobleski won his 10th game in a 9-3 victory on Tuesday, he said the offense deserved a fair share of the credit for his success.

“We bang,” Wrobleski said, “so you can get a lot of wins if you go deep in games and go five innings. That’s more of a team thing than it is a performance thing for me, but it’s super cool.”

After collecting 17 hits here on Monday and 14 more on Tuesday, the Dodgers mustered five hits Wednesday, including a 431-foot home run from Freddie Freeman.

The Dodgers went hitless with runners in scoring position, leaving the bases loaded in the first inning, two men on in the third and two more in the eighth.

Will Smith out until after All-Star break

The first half of the season will conclude with Will Smith in the same place he has been for the last month: the injured list.

The Dodgers’ three-time All-Star catcher has been on the IL since June 8 because of what the Dodgers list as neck inflammation. Smith said he had been diagnosed with an inflamed disk.

Roberts said he “just can’t see any world” in which Smith would return before the All-Star break, which concludes July 16.

“It’s certainly longer, I know, than all of us expected,” Roberts said. “But I don’t think it’s anything real, kind of affecting-the-season type thing.”

Will Smith has been sidelined by an injured neck.

(Rick Scuteri / Associated Press)

Roberts said Smith has not been able to accelerate his rehabilitation to the point of doing baseball activities.

Dalton Rushing, who has taken over as the Dodgers’ primary catcher in Smith’s absence, is batting .210 with one home run and 20 strikeouts in 19 games while Smith has been on the injured list. The Dodgers gave Rushing most of the day off Wednesday, although he struck out as a late-game replacement.

The Dodgers were 14-6 with Smith on the IL entering play Wednesday.

Also Wednesday, the team scratched shortstop Mookie Betts from the starting lineup because of a sore right wrist. Roberts said he expected Betts to play Thursday.

SAN DIEGO — One after another, Kyle Tucker and Dalton Rushing broke up their offensive slumps with home runs.

The Dodgers’ sixth-inning rally, en route to a 15-3 victory against the Padres at Petco Park Saturday, featured blasts from the two hitters who needed individual victories at the plate.

Tucker, who entered Saturday with just a .700 OPS, had gone four straight games without a hit. Rushing went hitless in the previous five, in a rough seven-week stretch.

“It’s tough,” Tucker said of his uncharacteristically slow offensive start. “You just have to try and stay positive as much as you can. … We’re going to enjoy the win, but you’ve got another game tomorrow, and you’ve gotta move on to that. Anything that happened yesterday, you’ve got to move on, do your best at that, move on to the next game, and try to improve and try to help your team win.”

Tucker and Rushing’s home runs started the sunflower seed showers in a nine-run inning, which included a home run by Mookie Betts. Four of the runs scored in the sixth were unearned.

The Dodgers’ Dalton Rushing celebrates with Alex Freeland after hitting a home run against the Padres Saturday in San Diego.

(Tony Ding / Ap Photo/tony Ding)

The Dodgers took full advantage of the Padres’ defensive mistakes to jump-start their offense.

In the second inning, Max Muncy hit a line drive into the corner, and Padres right fielder Fernando Tatis Jr. dove after it. But he missed the catch, and the ball bounced behind him. Muncy legged out a triple. And that put him in position to score easily on Tommy Edman’s double to the center-field warning track for the first run of the game.

The Padres evened the score with a Gavin Sheets’ solo home run off Dodgers starter Yoshinobu Yamamoto, who’d go on to limit the Padres to two runs through six innings.

Shaky defense, however, came back to haunt the Padres the next inning.

With Freddie Freeman standing on second base, after a leadoff double against Padres right-hander Randy Vásquez, Muncy hit a sharp grounder to second baseman Will Wagner, who muffed the play. Freeman raced around the bases, scoring on a close play at the plate.

Then Edman, who’s been swinging a hot bat since making his season debut last week, tripled to drive in Muncy.

That’s when Tucker, who went three for five with four RBIs Saturday, stepped up to the plate. He won a nine-pitch battle, sending a cutter over the right-field fence.

“Kind of been looking for it all year,” Tucker said. “I just kind of caught the ball at the right point of contact. I didn’t really stay through it great, but I put a decent enough swing on it, got it to work out.”

Rushing was next, and also went long in a two-strike count.

The Dodgers kept extending the inning, with two walks and three more hits, including Betts’ three-run homer off Padres reliever Ron Marinaccio. It was Betts’ third home run in as many games.

The Padres chipped away at the lead with an RBI single from Sheets off Yamamoto in the sixth and another run against Dodgers reliever Kyle Hurt, who gave up two hits and issued two walks in one-third of an inning.

But the lead the Dodgers compiled in the sixth inning, plus the four runs they tacked on in the eighth with Muncy’s infield single, Edman’s bases-loaded groundout, and Tucker’s opposite-field single, was too steep to overcome.

By the ninth inning, both teams had position players pitching.

Injury update

The Dodgers hope to activate Teoscar Hernández (strained left hamstring) from the 10-day injured list on Monday, manager Dave Roberts said before Saturday’s game.

Hernández homered in all three of his triple-A rehab games, entering Saturday.

“Triple-A pitching is not comparative to big league pitching, I think we all know that,” Roberts said. “But if he’s healthy, he’s an easy guy to bet on.”

Catcher Will Smith, on the other hand, has not returned to baseball activities since receiving an injection to address his neck injury.

“I think we’re all surprised how long it’s taken,” Roberts said. “I hope he’s back before the All-Star break. But the more time he’s off, he’s going to have to play some [rehab] games. So that kind of cuts into the time of return to us. So I don’t really know. I don’t want to add any pressure to him. I want him to be healthy and then once he’s healthy we can have that conversation.”

MINNEAPOLIS — The series finale between the Dodgers and Minnesota Twins featured a marquee pitching matchup between Shohei Ohtani and Joe Ryan. But the Dodgers’ 4-3 win on Wednesday wasn’t quite the pitcher’s duel it was advertised to be, in front of the Twins’ first sellout crowd of the season at Target Field.

The Dodgers offense had eight hits against Ryan, tied for the second-most he’s allowed in a start this season, and four runs in six innings. And Ohtani gave up three runs (two earned) and five hits.

Ryan won the first battle — the one against Ohtani the hitter to lead off the first inning.

Ohtani roped a first-pitch fastball to right field, clocking an exit velocity of 110.7-mph, into the glove of Twins outfielder Kody Clemens. That was part of a three-up, three-down first inning for Ryan. Ohtani countered with a hitless first inning of his own on the mound, but with a walk.

In the top of the second, Mookie Betts’ solo homer gave the Dodgers (52-29) an early lead. The 300th home run of Betts’ career was part of a three-hit day for the shortstop, a triple shy of the cycle.

The Twins’ offense responded.

Their first run was the result of a passed ball. Ohtani gave up singles to three of the first four batters he faced in the second inning, to load the bases. Then, Ohtani threw a first-pitch fastball inside to Ryan Kreidler. It got past catcher Dalton Rushing, who seemed to expect a different pitch, and the ball rolled out of play to tie the score.

Rushing, in his first game back in the lineup after being removed Monday to rule out a concussion, huddled with Ohtani and pitching coach Mark Prior on the mound to debrief.

Ohtani then gave up a two-run single to Kreidler before striking out Trevor Larnach to end the inning.

It was a good thing Ohtani, who went 2-for-5 on Wednesday, had lobbied to hit and pitch. Dodgers No. 9 hitter Alex Freeland led off the third with a double. Then Ohtani sent a ground ball up the middle to give himself some run support.

That started a three-run rally for the Dodgers. Max Muncy later drove in Ohtani, and Alex Call contributed a sacrifice fly to give the Dodgers a lead again.

Twins left-hander Anthony Banda, who received his World Series ring Monday from a gaggle of his former teammates, took over for Ryan in the seventh.

Ohtani was the first hitter he faced. And Banda struck him out on a fastball that barely clipped the outside corner — and was initially called a ball, before a successful ABS challenge by Twins catcher Victor Caratini.

Banda then hit Andy Pages with a pitch and gave up a single to Freeman. But he escaped unscathed, stranding them at the corners.

The Twins threatened in the seventh and eighth, but Dodgers right-hander Kyle Hurt overcame a pair of walks, and left-hander Alex Vesia navigated a pair of singles to hold the score. Closer Tanner Scott secured the save.

MINNEAPOLIS — Dodgers manager Dave Roberts is planning for right fielder Kyle Tucker to be out for the rest of the series against the Minnesota Twins, after he left Monday’s game with low back spasms.

Roberts hopes to write Tucker into the lineup Friday, when the Dodgers open a three-game series in San Diego, after three days off, plus most of the game Monday.

“Hopefully he [can take] advantage of this, obviously to get right, but also kind of a mental reset,” Roberts said. “Hopefully the four days will suffice.”

Tucker, who said he felt a little better Tuesday but still sore, especially when rotating, is “pretty confident” that he’ll be able to avoid the injured list. And if he can take swings on Wednesday, he’ll probably be on track for that Friday return.

“But if he doesn’t, then we’ll have probably a tougher decision on Friday,” Roberts said.

Tucker, who has a .707 on-base-plus-slugging-percentage this season, has had a slow offensive start to his Dodgers’ tenure. He wasn’t ready to make any declarations about the potential benefits of time off to reset.

“Maybe,” he said. “We’ll see after I get back. We’ll see how that goes.”

The news on catcher Dalton Rushing, who exited Monday’s game to rule out a concussion, was more straightforward.

Rushing hadn’t yet gone through the second round of concussion testing needed to clear him to play when Roberts addressed the media Tuesday afternoon. But Rushing had told Roberts he was ready to play.

“That doesn’t carry too much weight until I hear from the medical staff,” Roberts said. “But it is good to know that he said he’s good to go. My hope is that he’ll be available off the bench in some capacity.”

As a downpour hammered the tarped field early Tuesday evening, it was unclear when exactly the Dodgers would be playing. But despite plenty of rain in the forecast Tuesday evening, the teams and Major League Baseball identified a window for the game.

The Twins announced an estimated 5:05 p.m. PDT first pitch, representing a 25-minute rain delay.

Tampa Bay Rays center fielder Cedric Mullins crashed chest first into the blue padding of the wall as he made one last-ditch effort to save his team from a Dodgers home run. His glove, though, came up empty.

Not even a leaping Mullins, one of baseball’s veteran home-run robbers, could stop Freddie Freeman from doing what the Dodgers first baseman does best: hitting clutch home runs.

Freeman’s two-run home run in the sixth inning Wednesday, set up by Andy Pages’ double an at-bat earlier, lifted the Dodgers to a 5-4 win that allowed them to maintain a season-high nine-game lead over their closest National League West rival, the San Diego Padres (38-35). For the Dodgers (48-27), it was their sixth sweep of the season — all while surviving a shaky start on the mound by the usually unshakable Shohei Ohtani.

“He’s like a lot of our guys — when they feel good, they get their rest, production follows,” Dodgers manager Dave Roberts said of Freeman. “He’s been good for quite some time.”

If Ohtani’s left knee inflammation was bothering the four-time MVP, it didn’t seem to pose that great of a threat as he pitched the first four innings, and he pinch-hit in the sixth inning for Miguel Rojas, who had started at designated hitter.

Tampa Bay (41-30) eventually broke through in the fifth inning, scoring four runs on small-ball hits that found just enough grass. No particular pitch seemed particularly off for Ohtani, though the Rays connected more on his four-seam fastball that inning than the others. A bleeding blister that opened up didn’t help either.

“The stuff was good,” Roberts said. “The sweeper wasn’t as lights out, swing and miss as we’ve seen. He still always finds a way to manage innings and make pitches when he needs to, but yeah, I mean, I think that he was still kind of working through some delivery stuff with the knee.”

A handful of unlucky plays in the fifth left the Dodgers vulnerable. Take Mullins’ single to Freeman. Mullins hit the ball hard enough that Freeman, more than a handful of steps away from first base, wouldn’t be able to make the play unassisted. Ohtani tried his hardest to match Mullins’ speed but couldn’t.

“There was a little confusion with the Shohei inning, as far as you know, Freddie going to second, then Shohei thinking that, so giving them an extra out there,” Roberts said.

After a five-hit inning, Ohtani escaped on a bunt that went to Tommy Edman — playing third base in his return from the injured list — who threw to first for the third out. Ohtani’s ERA, after he surrendered a season-worst four earned runs, rose to 1.47 but still is second only to Milwaukee’s Jacob Misiorowski among pitchers with at least 70 innings.

Shohei Ohtani gave up a season-worst four earned runs in the fifth inning Wednesday.

(Ronaldo Bolanos / Los Angeles Times)

“I felt good overall,” Ohtani said through interpreter Will Ireton. “It’s just really that inning, that fifth inning, that I wasn’t really too pleased. But aside from that, the stuff was good and felt pretty good overall.”

Rays starter Shane McClanahan also ran into trouble in the fourth inning. Alex Call singled in Mookie Betts for the first run, then stole second base. Call sprinted home on an Alex Freeland single, his helmet popping off and skidding a couple of feet into the grass as he crossed home.

McClanahan left the game with the bases loaded after the left-hander walked Edman — his only time reaching base in an 0-for-3 day — before Pages ended the inning by lining out softly to short against Casey Legumina.

The Dodgers came up short in another bases-loaded opportunity the next inning, squandering a chance to take the lead. Kyle Tucker pushed one run across on a bases-loaded walk. Yet, with no outs, the next three batters — Call, Dalton Rushing and Freeland — went down in order. The Dodgers finished with 11 runners left on base, which nearly cost them.

Alex Vesia put the potential tying run on base with a walk and spent most of his ninth-inning outing with Tampa Bay’s Austin Slater on second. The Dodgers intentionally walked Yandy Díaz with two outs to face Jonathan Aranda, who earned a walk. With the bases loaded, Vesia struck out Mullins swinging to end the game. It capped a stretch of nine scoreless innings by the bullpen in this series after the unit struggled during the team’s recent trip.

“I put myself into that mess,” Vesia said with a small smile while shaking his head. “Rush and I were just — I was leaning on him, to be honest. He had some good words of encouragement during a couple meetings. Just trust my stuff. I felt like I was nibbling around the edge. Overall, I’ll take it. It was a good win for all of us.”

Injury updates

Teoscar Hernández, out with a hamstring injury, is scheduled to take live batting practice Thursday. A simulated game is also in the works for the 33-year-old outfielder before a rehab game early next week, Roberts said.

Will Smith is unlikely to be reinstated Friday when he is eligible to come off the injured list. The Dodgers still are trying to figure out ways to make sure he doesn’t regress once the catcher comes back from a neck injury. He did a full workout Tuesday.

“I don’t want to put a say on when he’s going to play,” Roberts said. “But each day is getting better.”

Dalton Rushing was frustrated. He just chased a slider in the dirt — again. And this time, the game was on the line. The Dodgers were down to their last out. He was down to his last strike.

So he took a moment, took a breath, and looked to the Dodgers dugout.

The first person he spotted was Mookie Betts, who had just cut the Orioles’ lead to a run with a solo homer. Betts was locked in with Rushing, brimming with confidence, cheering him on.

“For a guy like that, a guy that’s lived in that moment, he’s succeeded in that moment, he’s failed in that moment, he knows what it feels like, it’s pretty special,” Rushing recounted.

Rushing’s eyes traveled along the railing, noting his teammates all on the top step, all relying on him.

He dug into the box, expecting the slider that Baltimore’s Ryan Helsley threw next — it was high, for a ball. Then Rushing got a fastball he could drive. And he did not miss.

The next moments in the Dodgers’ 6-5 walk-off win Friday were chaos.

Rushing lined a tying single into right field, giving Alex Call time to score from second. Call slid across the plate as the throw from Orioles right fielder Tyler O’Neill took for a long hop to catcher Samuel Basallo.

Basallo misjudged it, taking an unhurried shuffle up the line, before the ball glanced off his glove and rolled toward the Dodgers dugout.

Third base coach Dino Ebel waved home Ryan Ward, who scored standing up.

Manager Dave Roberts, who looked down at his card when the throw was in the air, was already thinking through extra innings when the crowd erupted again. He heard field coordinator Bob Geren shouting something like, “The run counts.”

The Dodgers (49-27) ran onto the field and swarmed Rushing, who had just reached second. They jumped and yelled as the Dodgers Stadium lights flashed around them.

“It was good to get Freddie [Freeman] a night off for being the guy in the middle for a change, you know?” Rushing said with a grin. “No, it’s a great feeling, and I think it honestly just feels great that we won that baseball game.”

For several innings, it looked like they wouldn’t.

Dalton Rushing celebrates after hitting a run-scoring single in the ninth to help lift the Dodgers to a 6-5 walk-off win over the Baltimore Orioles at Dodger Stadium.

(Gina Ferazzi / Los Angeles Times)

The Dodgers had jumped out to an early 3-0 lead, on a two-run single from Max Muncy in the first inning and an RBI double from Andy Pages in the second. Then their scoring dried up.

Rushing was having as frustrating of a night as anyone, with a line out and three strikeouts.

His first strikeout was part of a brutal sequence. The Dodgers loaded the bases with no outs in the third. Then Ward, Rushing and Alex Freeland, all went down swinging.

Rushing struck out on a slider in the dirt. And Orioles starter Trey Gibson got him to bite on the same putaway pitch in the fifth.

Rushing’s reactions steadily grew more animated, on the field and in the dugout.

Mookie Betts celebrates as he runs the bases after hitting a solo home run in the ninth inning Friday against the Orioles.

(Gina Ferazzi / Los Angeles Times)

Alex Freeland signals safe after sliding past Baltimore catcher Samuel Basallo to score on a double by Andy Pages in the second inning Friday.

(Gina Ferazzi / Los Angeles Times)

“He plays with a fire under his ass,” Freeland said. “He gets after it. He expects nothing but the best for himself day in and day out, and that comes with it.”

Said Roberts: “After he … vents, he does a good job of collecting himself to get back into the next play, the next at-bat, catching.”

On Friday, he was catching Roki Sasaki, who faced just one batter over the minimum through five innings. But during the third time through the order, the Orioles finally figured him out and hit back-to-back home runs.

With two outs and a runner on, Sasaki yanked a splitter to the inside edge of the strike zone to Gunnar Henderson, who lifted it over the wall in right field. Pete Alonso then homered to left-center field on an inside fastball about belt high to tie the score.

“I thought he threw the baseball really well,” Roberts said. “I liked the way he competed. The fastball command was good. He was fantastic tonight.”

The Orioles (35-42) pulled ahead against the Dodgers bullpen. Will Klein surrendered a seventh-inning single to Jackson that sent two baserunners, including one inherited from Dodgers left-hander Jack Dreyer, across the plate.

Kyle Hurt and Blake Treinen threw clean eighth and ninth innings.

Finally, in the bottom of the ninth, Betts ended the Dodgers’ scoring drought. Then Muncy — later replaced by the pinch-running Call — and Ward drew walks.

With two outs, Rushing stepped up to the plate, fell behind in the count 0-2 and reset.

“I look in the dugout, and all those guys care about is that next pitch, and the next pitch after that, and the next pitch after that,” Rushing said. “They just want you to win one pitch at a time.”

So, that’s what he did.

Miguel Rojas had practiced his dance moves in the Dodgers dugout Monday, long before he hit the go-ahead home run. Before the game, he strutted around, at one point even grabbing Dalton Rushing, decked in full catcher’s gear, to get hyped.

Rojas, who pinch-hit for Alex Freeland in the bottom of the seventh and homered to center, was more measured as he crossed the plate without any antics. His veteran steadiness never indicated that he‘d hit a pinch-hit home run only one other time in his career.

The Dodgers’ 4-3 win over Tampa Bay rid them of their middling road performance. The team split a six-game trip, capped by a Sunday loss to the Chicago White Sox, before returning home.

No one found more immediate success than Kyle Tucker, who temporarily put his .227 batting average on the trip in the rearview mirror. For how long remains a question. Tucker’s season so far has looked more like a teenager testing out their driver’s license: stopping and starting and stopping again. Yet everything seemed to be working when the Dodgers (46-27) beat the Rays (41-28).

Of the five Dodgers who’ve played at least 60 games, Tucker has the lowest batting average (.238). Still, he battled in an eight-pitch duel in the second inning before taking a changeup 384 feet over the wall in right-center. His home run tied the score at three apiece, and Tucker wasn’t finished.

The next inning, the Rays’ Ben Williamson hit a two-out single to Tucker in right field, and Tampa’s Jonathan Aranda darted around third toward home. Tucker lasered a ball to Rushing, who tagged Aranda out on the slide.

Miguel Rojas acknowledges the bullpen after homering in the seventh inning.

(Eric Thayer / Los Angeles Times)

The defensive play helped buoy an otherwise precarious start by pitcher Eric Lauer. The left-hander had been undefeated in three starts with the Dodgers, a large departure from the 1-5 record he had with the Toronto Blue Jays. After starting his year with a 6.69 ERA, Lauer had dropped it to 2.76 with the Dodgers.

But inconsistencies plagued Lauer’s start, ranging from the three earned runs he gave up in the first two innings to a pitch clock violation in the fourth. While Lauer eventually settled, the command of his fastball remained absent. He normally crosses the strike zone with 53.7% accuracy on his fastball, getting batters to chase about 37% of the time. In the series opener, Lauer threw his four-seamer in the zone only 42% of the time, cutting his chase rate to 23%.

In other words, the best pitch in Lauer’s arsenal became one of his worst, and the Rays took advantage. Junior Caminero doubled in the first inning, and Ryan Vilade followed with a home run on a cutter, silencing a sold-out Dodger Stadium before the game could even heat up. The Rays tacked on another run on a safety squeeze, taking the lead until Tucker’s home run. Lauer finished after six innings, giving up the three earned runs on six hits and three walks, striking out four.

Tampa Bay starter Nick Martinez fared about as well. The right-hander lasted 5-1/3 innings of three-run baseball, striking out six and walking one.

While there was movement on the bases for both starters, the game lulled until the seventh. A couple of feet separated Rushing’s foul ball from a home run. Reliever Steven Matz didn’t get so lucky with Rojas, who delivered his first homer since April 20.

PHOENIX — The Dodgers had managed to cling to their lead over the Diamondbacks despite the comeback attempt the home team had mounted in the late innings.

Now it was up to left-hander Tanner Scott, coming off his first blown save of the season, to finish the job.

With the would-be tying run standing on first base and one out, Scott crashed hard on Geraldo Perdomo’s sacrifice bunt and zipped a throw across the diamond just in time for the out.

Then to tie a bow on the outing, Scott got Pavin Smith to lunge after an outside slider and ground into the final out of the game.

“It was good to see,” manager Dave Roberts said after the Dodgers’ 6-5 win Tuesday. I thought from pitch one he was pitching with a purpose. Obviously there was no margin with a one-run lead. I just liked the way he was going after those guys.”

Though the Dodgers led for the game from Freddie Freeman’s first-inning homer on, it was a nail-biter. The Diamondbacks rallied against a Dodgers bullpen that had been practically flawless for weeks. Roberts made five pitching changes. But with an offensive bounce-back and strong pitching performances on the front and back end, the Dodgers evened the series at Chase Field.

Mookie Betts, from left, Max Muncy, Freddie Freeman and Alex Freeland await the pitcher.

(Rick Scuteri / Associated Press)

“It’s nice after only scoring one [Monday] to get out and get some runs early on the board,” said Freeman, who led the team with three hits. “Four runs in the first couple innings, you would hope you keep going. But two in the middle innings there was good enough. Pitching was good again. Got a little hairy at the end, but luckily pulled it off.”

Freeman and Ohtani teamed up to give the Dodgers that four-run lead against Diamondbacks starter Michael Soroka in the first two innings.

A double from Ohtani preceded Freeman’s first-inning blast. Then the next inning, Dalton Rushing and Alex Freeland’s back-to-back singles set up Ohtani to score them both when he lined a triple into the right-field corner.

Dodgers starter Eric Lauer, making his second start since the trade that brought him over from the Blue Jays, tossed two scoreless frames to maintain that lead.

In the third, however, Diamondbacks star Corbin Carroll sent a cutter the other way, and it bounced off the top of the left-field wall into the home bullpen for Arizona’s first run of the night.

Lauer relied on soft contact to throw a scoreless fourth inning, but he ran into some trouble in the fifth, with back-to-back singles, a sacrifice fly, a disengagement violation and PitchCom issues.

In a two-run game, Roberts pulled the plug before Lauer could face right-handed No. 3 hitter Gabriel Moreno for a third time, even though Lauer had set him down twice. Lauer’s pitch count was only up to 70, after giving up five hits in 4 ⅔ innings.

“I thought I could have tried to convince him on the mound [to let me stay in], but he kind of stuck his hand out right away, so I didn’t have a huge chance there,” Lauer said. “But afterwards, we talked, and he explained his thought process to me and just reiterated his thoughts, and I agreed. And I think that’s huge, just to be able to have that conversation.”

Lauer did have an inkling, however, that he wasn’t going to be in the game too much longer with Nolan Arenado on deck. Arenado entered Tuesday with eight hits off Lauer in 27 at-bats (.296 batting average). Half of them were homers.

“We’re still learning each other, so it’s just making sure that [he knows] I do believe in him,” Roberts said of their conversation. “If I’m not going to let him go through Arenado right there, I felt it would give Blake the best chance to get us out of that inning in a tight ball game.

“I don’t want him looking over his shoulder. I pushed him in his first start, didn’t push him this start, because he was really good for us. And I just don’t want anything lost in translation or the assumption game. So I just wanted to kind of be forthright.”

Shohei Ohtani reacts after scoring on a single by Mookie Betts in the seventh inning,

(Rick Scuteri / AP)

Roberts turned to right-handed reliever Blake Treinen, who walked Moreno but got out of the inning by inducing Arenado to fly out to left field. Rookie Ryan Ward, in his fourth major league game, made the sliding catch.

The Dodgers (39-22) added insurance in the seventh, manufacturing the first with a double from Dalton Rushing, sacrifice bunt from Alex Freeland, an intentional walk to Ohtani, and sacrifice fly from Andy Pages. Back-to-back singles from Freedman and Betts pushed across a second run.

The Diamondbacks countered. And for the first time, the Dodgers’ lead looked like it was in danger.

Dodgers reliever Kyle Hurt’s command was shaky from the start. And his two walks with less than two out in the seventh came back to haunt him, as both baserunners scored on Arenado’s double off the wall. Ward bobbled the ball as he picked it up for the relay home and a close play at the plate for the second run.

Hurt issued a third walk, a season high, before fellow right-hander Will Klein replaced him.

Pinch-hitter Geraldo Perdomo shot a line-drive single off Klein into shallow left field, loading the bases. Klein walked in a run, which trimmed the Dodgers’ lead to 6-5.

A broken-bat grounder to the right side of the infield, hunted down by Freeman ranging to his backhand side from first base, ended the inning.

Infield defense again got Klein out of a jam in the eighth, turning a double play after back-to-back singles to maintain the lead.

“They’re not going to be clean every time out there,” Roberts said of Hurt and Klein, two relievers he’s trusted in high-leverage situations this year. “They’ve both been very good for us. You’ve got to give those guys credit today, the Diamondbacks. They spoiled some pitches. They hit to the opposite field. They battled tonight.”

Scott (2.10 ERA) took over in the ninth, in his first appearance since Saturday, when he broke a streak of 12 appearances without giving up a run. His wife Maddie posted screenshots of the death threats their family received via social media in the aftermath.

On Tuesday, Scott retired three of the four batters he faced, with only a well-placed single through the right side of the field — a “soft-serve hit, as Roberts put it” — marring the outing.

Said Roberts: “Outside of that, he was really sharp tonight.”

The Dodgers claimed a series victory over the Chicago Cubs with a 6-0 win on Sunday.

Their offensive surge from the previous game carried over into the first inning.

Shohei Ohtani and Teoscar Hernández remained patient against Cubs rotation-leader Shota Imanaga, both drawing walks. Then Andy Pages hit a sacrifice fly, Kyle Tucker doubled and Miguel Rojas drove in two runs, to give the Dodgers (19-9) a 3-0 lead.

Neither team scored for the next four innings.

Dodgers left-hander Justin Wrobleski navigated early command issues, issuing three walks in the first two innings before finding his rhythm to get through six frames without allowing a run. He limited the Cubs (17-11) to four hits.

The Dodgers’ bats came alive again in the sixth. Pages led with a double and Kyle Tucker drew a walk, setting up Dalton Rushing’s RBI single through the right side of the field. Tucker later scored on an errant back-pick attempt by Cubs catcher Carson Kelly.

Kyle Tucker scores for the Dodgers in the fifth inning against the Chicago Cubs on Sunday.

(Ronaldo Bolanos / Los Angeles Times)

The next inning, designated hitter Shohei Ohtani homered for the first time in two weeks, suggesting the end of his short-lived slump.

Dodgers relievers Edgardo Henriquez, Jack Dreyer and Kyle Hurt completed the shutout.

Will Smith sidelined

Dodgers catcher Will Smith was out of the lineup for the second straight game because of lingering back tightness, according to manager Dave Roberts.

“It’s one of those where he could play if needed,” Roberts said. “But we just thought it was smart to give him an extra day.”

Roberts said the Dodgers were not considering putting Smith on the injured list and hoped he would return to the lineup Monday against the Miami Marlins. It helped that backup catcher Rushing entered Sunday batting .400 with seven home runs in just 11 games.

“You weigh out the positives and negatives,” Roberts said. “But Dalton going the way he’s going, it just only seems like downside to push [Smith] now.”