Hernández

TORONTO — Tyler Glasnow threw seven, maybe eight, pitches in the bullpen. There was no more time to wait. The red emergency light was flashing.

For 14 years, Glasnow has made a nice living as a pitcher. He has thrown hard, if not always durably or effectively.

There is one thing he had not done. In 320 games, from the minors to the majors, from the Arizona Fall League to the World Series, he never had earned a save.

Until Friday, that is, and only after the Dodgers presented him with this opportunity out of equal parts confidence and desperation: Please save us. The winning run is at the plate with no one out. If you fail, we lose the World Series.

No pressure, kid.

He is not one of the more intense personalities on the roster, which makes him a good fit in a situation in which someone else might think twice, or more, at the magnitude of the moment.

“I honestly didn’t have time to think about it,” Glasnow said.

In Game 6 on Friday, the Dodgers in order used a starter to start, a reliever to relieve, the closer of the moment, and then Glasnow to close. In Game 7 on Saturday, the Dodgers plan to start Shohei Ohtani, likely followed by a parade of starters.

Glasnow, who said he could not recall ever pitching on back-to-back days, could be one of them.

“I threw three pitches,” he said. “I’m ready to go.”

The Dodgers had asked him to be ready to go in relief on Friday, so he moseyed on down to the bullpen in the second inning. He didn’t really believe he would pitch. After all, Dodgers starter Yoshinobu Yamamoto had thrown consecutive complete games. If Yamamoto could not throw another, Glasnow did not believe he would be the first guy called.

He was not. Justin Wrobleski was, protecting a 3-1 lead, and he delivered a scoreless seventh inning. Closer Roki Sasaki was next, and the Dodgers planned for him to work the eighth and ninth.

Glasnow said bullpen coach Josh Bard warned him to be on alert. Sasaki walked two in the eighth but escaped. He hit a batter and gave up a double to lead off the ninth, and the Dodgers rushed in Glasnow.

“I warmed up very little, got out there,” Glasnow said. “It was like no thinking at all.”

The Dodgers’ scouting reports gave Glasnow and catcher Will Smith reason to believe Ernie Clement would try to jump on the first pitch, so Glasnow said he threw a two-seam fastball that he seldom throws to right-handed batters. Clement popped up.

The next batter, Andrés Giménez, hit a sinking fly ball to left fielder Kiké Hernández. Off the bat, Glasnow said he feared a hit.

If the ball falls in, Giménez has a single and the Dodgers’ lead shrinks to one run. If the ball skips past Hernández, the Blue Jays tie the score.

Glasnow said he had three brief thoughts, in order:

1: “Please don’t be a hit.”

Hernández charged hard and made the running catch.

2: “Sweet, it’s not a hit.”

Hernández threw to second base for the game-ending double play.

3: “Nice, a double play.”

Wrobleski tipped his cap to his new bullpen mate.

“He’s a beast, man,” Wrobleski said. “To be able to come in in that spot, it takes a lot of mental strength and toughness. He did it. I didn’t expect anything less out of him, but it was awesome.”

Wrobleski was pretty good himself. The Dodgers optioned him the maximum five times last year and four times this year. He did not pitch in the first three rounds of the playoffs, and his previous two World Series appearances came in a mop-up role and during an 18-inning game.

Dodgers reliever Justin Wrobleski reacts after striking out Toronto’s Andrés Giménez to end the seventh inning in Game 6 of the World Series on Friday.

(Robert Gauthier / Los Angeles Times)

On Friday, they entrusted him with helping to keep their season alive. They got three critical outs from Wrobleski, who is not even making $1 million this season, and three more from Glasnow, who is making $30 million.

“We got a lot of guys that aren’t making what everybody thinks they’re making, especially down in that bullpen,” Wrobleski said. ”We were talking about it the other day. There’s a spot for everybody. If you keep grinding, you can wedge yourself in.”

He did. He was recruited by Clemson out of high school, then basically cut from the team.

“They told me to leave,” he said.

Did a new coach come in?

“No, I was just bad,” he said. “I had like a 10.3 ERA.”

Glasnow signed with the Pittsburgh Pirates out of Hart High in Santa Clarita. In the majors, the Pirates tried him in relief without offering him a chance to close. Did they fail to recognize a budding bullpen star? “I never threw strikes,” he said. “I just wasn’t that good.”

We’ve all heard stories about the kid who goes into his backyard with a wiffle ball, taking a swing and pretending to be the batter who hits the home run in the World Series.

Glasnow doesn’t hit.

“I’ve had all sorts of daydreams about every pitching thing possible as a kid — relieving, closing out a game, starting in the World Series,” he said. “I thought about it all the time. So it’s pretty wild. I haven’t really processed it, either. I think going out to be able to get a save in the World Series is pretty wild.”

The game-ending double play was reviewed by instant replay, so Glasnow missed out on the trademark closer experience: the last out, immediately followed by the handshake line. Instead, everyone looked to the giant video board and waited.

Eventually, an informal line formed.

“I got some dap-ups,” he said. He smiled broadly, then walked out into the Toronto night, the proud owner of his first professional save. For his team, and for Los Angeles, he had kept the hope of a parade alive.

Shohei Ohtani wore the same mask of calm that he always wears.

He spoke with detachment, as he often does.

By the time Ohtani walked into the interview room at Dodger Stadium after his team’s 6-2 defeat in Game 4 of the World Series, however, he was already devising his redemption.

“Of course, I’d like to prepare to be available for every game in case I’m needed,” Ohtani said in Japanese.

Ohtani wants to pitch again in this World Series.

He wants to pitch again, even after he was saddled with the loss on Tuesday night by the Toronto Blue Jays.

He wants to pitch again, even after the physical demands of reaching base nine times in an 18-inning victory the previous night clearly diminished him on the mound.

If Ohtani pitches, he would almost certainly pitch in relief.

Pitching in middle relief doesn’t make sense for Ohtani, considering that when he departs the game as a pitcher, rules would require the Dodgers to play him in the outfield or lose him as a hitter for the remainder of the game.

They might as well use him as a closer, and they might as well use him in a World Series clincher, either in Game 6 or 7.

This is who Ohtani is. This is what he does.

He won’t let the disappointment of his World Series pitching debut scare him away from pursuing another dream. He isn’t afraid of failure.

Game 4 was a failure.

The six-hour 39-minute game the Dodgers played the night before offered Ohtani cover. He reached base a record nine times. He homered twice and doubled twice. His leg cramped at some point. He went to sleep at 2 a.m.

But Ohtani didn’t take any of the excuses that were offered to him.

“I have no plans of saying the game yesterday was this or that,” he said.

The truth was revealed in his play.

Ohtani looked exhausted. He sweated profusely and looked as if he might be dehydrated. He looked, well, human.

His fastball uncharacteristically never touched 100 mph, but he pitched well for the most part. His only notable mistake was an elevated sweeper he threw in the third inning to Vladimir Guerrero Jr. that was deposited over the left-field wall for a two-run home run.

Ohtani struck out the side in the fourth inning, as well as the first batter he faced in the fifth. Manager Dave Roberts said that pitching coach Mark Prior approached Ohtani in the sixth innings and asked him how much he had left.

“He said he had three more innings,” Roberts said.

Ohtani couldn’t make it out of the seventh inning. In fact, he couldn’t even record an out in the seventh, starting the inning by giving up a single to Daulton Varsho and a double to Ernie Clement. With Ohtani clearly gassed, Roberts called in Anthony Banda, who allowed the two inherited runners to score.

Ohtani’s final line: Six innings, four runs, six hits, a walk and six strikeouts.

He said his goal was to pitch seven innings.

Ohtani didn’t have the game he wanted in the batter’s box, either. It didn’t help that he didn’t have any form of lineup protection. No. 9 hitter Andy Pages, who batted in front of him, was 0 for two and is now batting .080 this postseason. Mookie Betts, who batted behind him, was hitless until the eighth inning when the game was already out of reach. Betts is batting .158 in this World Series.

Ohtani walked in the first inning but was hitless in the three at-bats that followed. Not one of the 14 pitches he saw from Blue Jays starter Shane Bieber was near the middle quadrant of the plate.

Being a starting pitcher and leadoff hitter in the same game was hard enough. Being a starting pitcher and a leadoff hitter in the same game after an 18-inning battle was revealed to be downright impossible. Because if Ohtani couldn’t do it, nobody could.

Instead of moping over the setback, Ohtani has started eyeing his next boundary-pushing maneuver: To be a leadoff hitter and high-leverage reliever in the same game.

The World Series is now tied, two games apiece. The fixation Ohtani has with finding new methods to win games could be why the Dodgers finish as champions again.

Beyond the Cuban diaspora, the genre known as reparto is overwhelmingly unknown. But on the streets of Havana and Hialeah, Miami, reparto is inescapable, pulsing from balconies and portable speakers on the beach.

Born in Cuba’s working-class neighborhoods — known colloquially as repartos — this hyperkinetic fusion of reggaetón, timba and Afro-Cuban rhythms has become the island’s score. In the mid-2000s, artists like Chocolate MC and Elvis Manuel built the genre’s sound on distorted synth stabs, shouted call-and-response hooks, and the distinct Cuban clave beat that makes your body move before your brain can even catch up.

It’s also become a platform for youth navigating scarcity, surveillance and dreams of escaping poverty. The lyrics, characteristically and unapologetically obscene, reflect the realities of life in marginalized communities. But alongside its rhythmic bravado, reparto’s explicit language often veers into the dehumanizing and misogynistic.

The music centers on women, but more often than not, as objects: the perra to conquer, the diabla to tame, the culo to catalog in explicit detail. And it’s no surprise: The genre’s blunt portrayal of women mirrors the machismo deeply embedded in everyday Cuban life.

It’s a refrain you’re bound to hear in any and every nightclub: “¿Donde están las mujeres?” But the next time 10 reparteros link up for a track, they probably won’t call a woman. Within a genre that revolves so heavily around their bodies, women’s voices still remain rare.

So, ¿dónde están las mujeres? Or, where are the women making reparto?

“Chocolate is the king, but who is the queen?” says Seidy Carrera, known artistically as Seidy La Niña. “There’s a space that needs to be filled with women. There’s no f—ing women!”

At the onset of reparto, early reparteras like Melissa and Claudia slipped brief female cameos into club anthems. More than a decade later, due to Cuba’s only recent, and still extremely limited, internet access, these artists and their collaborations have a seemingly untraceable digital footprint. Still, most playlists orbit male voices, and collaborations rarely invite women to the booth: “When reparteros come together on a track, they never call a woman,” she says.

Carrera, 32, was born in the reparto El Cotorro and raised in Miami since she was 6. The self-proclaimed queen of reparto, the paradox defines her career: She fights for space in a scene whose appeal lies in her raw neighborhood realism, but detractors question her authenticity as a gringa, or as they would call her, yuma.

“I feel resistance every day, every single day,” she says. In response, she reclaims the discriminatory language used against her; onstage, she chants “más perra que bonita,” flipping the curse-word from insult to empowerment.

“It’s empowering to say, I’m more perra than pretty. To me, being a perra is being a woman who’s exclusive, who makes her own money. In my case, … nobody opened the door for me, nobody gave me a hand.”

For Havana-based singer-composer Melanie Santiler, 24, the double standard hits her before she can even sing her first note: “I feel that I have to do twice as well. I have to put in double the thought, double the effort, double the talent, always having something more to say,” she says.

“It’s exhausting. It’s exhausting being a woman, having to get up and tell yourself, damn, I have to look pretty and put together. I spent my whole life in school with an onion bun because I didn’t want to do my hair,” Santiler says and laughs, messy bun flopping around her face.

Reaching almost 5 million YouTube views on her 2025 viral collab, “Todo se Supera” with Velito el Bufón, she’s broken into the reparto space as one of the genre’s most distinctive voices. Beside this rise, she’s faced a newfound pressure to dress a way she normally wouldn’t, a beauty standard her masculine counterparts don’t face.

Aliaisys Alvarez Hernández — better known as Ozunaje — says she doesn’t face the same criticism in the urban Cuban music scene, likely due to her sexuality and more masculine appearance. “Reparto is a genre for men, that’s how I see it,” she says. “I dress like a man, I practically live my life like a man, so what I write resembles what men are already saying. That also gave me an impulse, where I feel like more feminine artists, they have to work harder.”

A former rhythmic gymnast from La Habana, Hernández, 23, stumbled into music when friends recorded her singing a demo of “Cosas del Amor” in her living room. Someone uploaded the video, it went viral, and suddenly, she had a career. Since that start, Hernández refuses to only be compared with other reparteras.

Her goal has always been to be measured against men, since “that’s who people actually listen to.” Dressing in traditionally masculine clothing, paired with a deep, raspy delivery, helps her lyrics resonate with locals without the extra hurdle of hyper-sexualized expectations.

Hernández’s androgynous wardrobe and open queerness bring another layer of potential discrimination, but despite the rampant homophobia persistent in present-day Cuba, she doesn’t feel much resistance. “The worst word they throw at me is tortillera, but it doesn’t affect me,” she says, adding, “People like my style, they like that I dress like a guy. Everybody tells me, you have tremendo flow, I love your aguaje, so I haven’t faced any bullying. Never.”

Misogynistic currents in reparto mirror those in early reggaetón, reflecting the average street machismo. The genre’s marginal roots complicate blanket condemnations, since the same raunchy lyrics often encode critiques of class exclusion. Still, reaching bigger stages will require editing the most gratuitous slurs, if only to broaden the music’s export potential. At least, Ozunaje thinks so.

“Reparto came from people who were poor, who had nothing, who were desperate to get out. Nobody imagined it would get this big. Now it’s reaching the whole world, so the vocabulary has to evolve,” she says.

Santiler echoes this critique. “It’s become really repetitive. I think right now, everyone is talking about the same thing. It’s been really easy. Facilista,” she says, using the Spanish term for taking the easy way out. Santiler loves reparto’s swing, but calls most of it objectifying, pointing to Bad Bunny’s “Andrea” and “Neverita,” along with C. Tangana’s “El Madrileño,” as proof that urban music can expand beyond bedroom conquests.

“The street already says these things, and reparto just writes it. It’s an image of what’s happening. But I grew up with other types of music and other types of references, so I’d like to expand beyond that, to make something fresh.”

Santiler adds that the basis of reparto, both in her gratitude and her criticism, comes from pride.

“I love Cuba, I love my country. The current generation of Cuba doesn’t reject their identity — they’re doing the opposite. They want to create a new culture, to create a new movement, and they want the world to know Cuba again,” she says.

Teoscar Hernández doesn’t believe in ghosts.

But just the same, the Dodgers outfielder declined to stay with the team at the historic — and allegedly haunted — Pfister Hotel in downtown Milwaukee during the first two games of the National League Championship Series against the Brewers this week.

Hernández told reporters before Game 2 on Tuesday that his wife, Jennifer, was the one who insisted on finding somewhere to stay other than the 137-year-old hotel that has been the source of spooky tales from MLB players for decades.

“I don’t believe in ghosts. I have stayed there before. I never see anything or hear anything,” Hernández said. “But my wife is on this trip, and she says she doesn’t want to stay in there. So we have to find another hotel.”

Hernández added, however, that his wife told him that she has heard from other players and their wives that there had been “something happening” over at the team hotel.

Asked to elaborate, Hernández said he had been told that in “some of the rooms, the lights, goes off and on, and the doors — there are noises, footsteps. … I’m not the guy that I’m gonna be here saying, ‘Oh yeah, I experienced that before,’ because I’m not, and I don’t think I’m gonna experience that.’”

Dodgers manager Dave Roberts was asked during his pregame media availability Tuesday if he had any ghost stories to share from the team’s stay at the Pfister.

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“I don’t,” Roberts said. “Those stories went away when I was about 10 years old. So, no, not anymore. I’m OK to go to bed now.”

Over the years, not everyone has been as at ease about staying at the creepy old digs. In 2005, then-Dodgers closer Eric Gagne told The Times’ Steve Henson that the place freaked him out.

“It’s old, weird and scary,” Gagne said. “It’s very creepy. I don’t sleep well there.”

Henson also noted at the time that former Dodgers third baseman Adrián Beltré had “reported a ghostly presence turning on lights and tickling his toes” during a 2001 stay at the Pfister. Fellow Times staff writer Kevin Baxter reported in 2007 that Beltre Beltronce insisted on sleeping with a bat for protection after he had a brush with a ghost” at the hotel.

One-time Dodgers infielder Michael Young told ESPN that he once heard loud stomping noises in his room while he was trying to sleep.

“So I yelled out, ‘Hey! Make yourself at home. Hang out, have a seat, but do not wake me up, OK?’” Young said. “After that, I didn’t hear a thing for the rest of the night.”

Current Dodgers shortstop Mookie Betts decided a couple of years ago he doesn’t want to take any chances at the spooky spot.

“I don’t know if they’re real or not, nor do I care,” Betts said of the hotel’s alleged ghosts after a 2023 game against the Brewers in Milwaukee. “My boys are here, so we just got an Airbnb. That’s really it.”

Betts admitted to the Orange County Register that the Airbnb rental was “just in case” the scary stories were true and “it was a good excuse” not to stay at the creepy old building.

Last, during another series in Milwaukee, Betts appeared to confirm that he will continue to find alternative lodging for road games against the Brewers.

“You don’t want to mess with them,” Betts said of the Pfister’s alleged ghosts. “I’m staying at an Airbnb again. That part is not gonna change.”

The Dodgers more than survived their two games in Milwaukee this week, riding dominant performances by starting pitchers Blake Snell and Yoshinobu Yamamoto to take a 2-0 National League Championship Series lead over the Brewers.

The Dodgers who checked in to the Pfister Hotel also appear to have survived another stay in downtown Milwaukee. And with the next three games (if that many are necessary) taking place at Dodger Stadium, they have the chance to make sure they avoid returning to the (allegedly) haunted haunt this postseason.

A judge temporarily blocked California Atty. Gen. Rob Bonta’s attempt to take over Los Angeles County’s beleaguered juvenile halls on Friday, finding that despite evidence of a “systemic failure” to improve poor conditions, Bonta had not met the legal grounds necessary to strip away local control.

After years of scandals — including frequent drug overdoses and incidents of staff violence against youths — Bonta filed a motion in July to place the county’s juvenile halls in “receivership,” meaning a court-appointed monitor would manage the facilities, set their budgets and oversee the hiring and firing of staff. An ongoing staffing crisis previously led a state oversight body to deem two of L.A. County’s halls unfit to house children.

L.A. County entered into a settlement with the California Department of Justice in 2021 to mandate improvements, but oversight bodies and a Times investigation earlier this year found the Probation Department was falling far short of fixing many issues, as required by the agreement.

On Friday, Los Angeles County Superior Court Judge Peter A. Hernandez chastised Bonta for failing to clearly lay out tasks for the Probation Department to abide by in the 2021 settlement. Hernandez said the attorney general’s office’s filings failed to show that a state takeover would lead to “a transformation of the juvenile halls.”

The steps the Probation Department needs to take to meet the terms of the settlement have been articulated in court filings and reports published by the L.A. County Office of the Inspector General for several years. Hernandez was only assigned to oversee the settlement in recent months and spent much of Friday’s hearing complaining about a lack of “clarity” in the case.

Hernandez wrote that Bonta’s motion had set off alarm bells about the Probation Department’s management of the halls.

“Going forward, the court expects all parties to have an ‘all-hands’ mentality,” the judge wrote in a tentative ruling earlier this week, which he adopted Friday morning.

Hernandez said he would not rule out the possibility of a receivership in the future, but wanted more direct testimony from parties, including Probation Department Chief Guillermo Viera Rosa and the court-appointed monitor over the settlement, Michael Dempsey. A hearing was set for Oct. 24.

The attorney general’s office did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

“The Department remains fully committed to making the necessary changes to bring our juvenile institutions to where they need to be,” Vicky Waters, the Probation Department’s chief spokesperson, said in a statement. “However, to achieve that goal, we must have both the authority and support to remove barriers that hinder progress rather than perpetuate no-win situations.”

The California attorney general’s office began investigating L.A. County’s juvenile halls in 2018 and found probation officers were using pepper spray excessively, failing to provide proper educational and therapeutic programming and detaining youths in solitary confinement for far too long.

Bonta said in July that the county has failed to improve “75%” of what they were mandated to change in the 2021 settlement.

A 2022 Times investigation revealed a massive staffing shortage was leading to significant injuries for both youths and probation officers. By May of 2023, the California Board of State and Community Corrections ordered Barry J. Nidorf Juvenile Hall in Sylmar shuttered due to unsafe conditions. That same month, an 18-year-old died of an overdose while in custody.

The county soon reopened Los Padrinos Juvenile Hall in Downey, but the facility quickly became the site of a riot, an escape attempt and more drug overdoses. Last year, the California attorney general’s office won indictments against 30 officers who either orchestrated or allowed youths to engage in “gladiator fights.” That investigation was sparked by video of officers allowing eight youths to pummel another teen inside Los Padrinos, which has also been deemed unfit to house youths by a state commission.

In court Friday, Laura Fair, an attorney from the attorney general’s office, said that while she understood Hernandez’s position, she expressed concern that teens are still in danger while in the Probation Department’s custody.

“The youth in the halls continue to be in grave danger and continue to suffer irreparable harm every day,” she said.

Fair told the court that several youths transferred out of Los Padrinos under a separate court order in recent weeks showed up at Nidorf Juvenile Hall with broken jaws and arms.

She declined to comment further outside the courtroom. Waters, the Probation Department’s spokesperson, said she was unaware of the situation Fair was describing but would look into it.

Despite the litany of fiascoes over the last few years, probation leaders still argued in court filings that Bonta had gone too far.

“The County remains open to exploring any path that will lead to better outcomes. But it strongly opposes the DOJ’s ill-conceived proposal, which will only harm the youth in the County’s care by sowing chaos and inconsistency,” county lawyers wrote in an opposition motion submitted last month. “The DOJ’s request is almost literally without precedent. No state judge in California history has ever placed a correctional institution into receivership.”

Under the leadership of Viera Rosa, who took office in 2023, the Probation Department has made improvements to its efforts to keep drugs out of the hall, rectify staffing issues and hold its own officers accountable for misconduct, the county argued.

The department has placed “airport-grade” body scanners and drug-sniffing dogs at the entrances to both Nidorf and Los Padrinos in order to stymie the influx of narcotics into the halls, according to Robert Dugdale, an attorney representing the county.

Dugdale also touted the department’s hiring of Robert Arcos, a former high-ranking member of the Los Angeles Police Department and L.A. County district attorney’s office, to oversee security in the facilities.

The motion claimed it was the Probation Department that first uncovered the evidence that led to the gladiator fight prosecutions. Bonta said in March that his office launched its investigation after it reviewed leaked footage of one of the incidents.

For Kiké Hernández, the regular season is little more than a six-month warm-up. Real baseball is played when the evening air turns crisp and the leaves begin to change.

And when summer turns to fall few players have stepped up bigger than Hernández, who had two hits, scored two runs and drove in another Wednesday, spurring a Dodger comeback that ended in an 8-4 win over the Cincinnati Reds and a sweep of their National League wild-card series.

That sends the team on to the best-of-five Division Series with the Phillies, which begins Saturday in Philadelphia.

“October Kiké is something pretty special,” Dodger manager Dave Roberts said. “And the track record speaks for itself. He’s one of the best throughout the history of the postseason.”

It’s a reputation he’s earned.

A .236 career hitter in the regular season, Hernández has hit .286 in 88 postseason games. He slashed .203/.255/.366 in an injury-marred regular season this year, but two games into the playoffs he’s hitting .500, leads the Dodgers with three runs scored and ranks second to Mookie Betts with four hits. He also made a splendid over-the-shoulder catch while racing to the warning track in the first inning Wednesday.

“Some guys are built for this moment. He’s definitely one of them,” said third baseman Max Muncy, standing in the middle of the Dodgers’ batting cage during the team’s postgame celebration, his blue T-shirt soaked in champagne as a teammate poured beer over his head.

Hernández, wearing goggles but not a shirt, made a brief appearance at the victory party but departed to celebrate with family before the champagne and beer began to puddle on the plastic sheeting that covered the floor.

His teammates were all too happy to speak about him in his absence.

“He’s a guy who is not shy from the from the moment,” infielder Miguel Rojas said. “I feel like the regular season for him is not enough.”

Rojas said he learned that first hand after rejoining the Dodgers in 2023. Although the team’s playoff run was brief, Hernández led the team with two RBIs and was second in hits and average.

“I saw it on TV before. But when I got here I saw that it was real,” he said. “He always wanted the moment and he showed it tonight with a big double to tie the game.”

That came with one out in the fourth, when his line drive to center field scored Muncy from first to tie the score, 2-2. Four pitches later he scored on Rojas’ single, putting the Dodgers ahead to stay.

But Hernández wasn’t finished. Two innings later he led off with a squibber up the third-base line that was going foul before it hit the bag for a single, starting a four-run rally that put the game away. The bottom third of the Dodger lineup — Hernández, Rojas and catcher Ben Rortvedt — combined to go six for 12 with five runs and two RBIs.

“Kiké is Kiké,” outfielder Teoscar Hernández said above the din of the celebration. “That’s the guy you get when October starts.”

Before that? Not so much. But for Hernández, the postseason has become redemption time.

“I know they brought me here for these types of moments,” he said before Wednesday’s game.

“The beautiful thing about the postseason is that once we get to the postseason, everything starts at zero. You can have a bad year and you flip the script and you start over in the postseason. You have a good postseason, help the team win, and nobody ever remembers what you did in the regular season.”

Hernández, 34, owes much of his fall heroics simply to the opportunity to play on the sport’s biggest stage. In a dozen big-league seasons, he’s made the playoffs 10 times, playing in 21 postseason series with the Dodgers and Boston Red Sox and winning two World Series rings.

“I’ve been blessed to be on the right team at the right time,” he said. “Being a good postseason player is kind of an individual thing, but not really. You’re on a team that doesn’t make the playoffs, you can’t be a postseason player.

“I just happen to be on a lot of really good teams, and I’ve been fortunate enough to get a lot of chances.”

With his performance Wednesday, he assured himself at least three more chances in the division series with the Phillies. And Rojas expects him to take full advantage.

“He always wants the moment and he wants to be out there,” he said. “I’m learning from him every single day. He’s the most prepared guy that I’ve ever played with.”

Especially in October.

Dodgers president of baseball operations Andrew Friedman often refers to the playoffs as the “theater of October.”

On the first day of the month Wednesday night, Game 2 of the National League wild-card series was only four batters old when the Dodgers had some dramatic adversity strike.

With two outs in the top of the first, Yoshinobu Yamamoto induced a routine fly ball down the right-field line. Outfielder Teoscar Hernández positioned himself under it. Ninety-nine percent of the time, the inning would have ended there.

This time, however, Hernández committed a horrifying mistake. The ball hit off the heel of his mitt. The Cincinnati Reds suddenly had runners at second and third base. And what should have been a clean opening frame instead turned into a two-run disaster, with Sal Stewart slapping a single through the infield in the next at-bat.

For the Dodgers, it was an immediate test.

Of their mental resolve after a self-inflicted miscue. Of their veteran composure in the face of an early deficit. Of the kind of resiliency that was so key in their World Series run last year, and will need to be again for them to repeat as champions.

In an eventual 8-4 comeback victory, they successfully, triumphantly and assuredly passed.

Behind 6 ⅔ clutch innings from Yamamoto, a go-ahead two-run rally in the fourth inning keyed by a Kiké Hernández double, and a back-breaking four-run explosion in the sixth after Yamamoto had escaped a bases-loaded jam, the Dodgers eliminated the Reds in this best-of-three opening round.

Despite another late tightrope act from the bullpen, which gave up two runs in the eighth before Roki Sasaki finished things off in the ninth, the team booked their place in the NL Division Series against the Philadelphia Phillies.

The Dodgers did not make it easy on themselves. They were dealt a full range of October theatrics. But they prevailed nonetheless with a hard-fought victory — the kind that could catapult them into the rest of this month.

Facing their early 2-0 deficit, the Dodgers never panicked.

Ben Rortvedt doubles during the third inning against the Cincinnati Reds on Wednesday night.

(Gina Ferazzi / Los Angeles Times)

The turnaround started with Yamamoto, who finally ended the first inning by striking out Elly De La Cruz, then didn’t let another runner reach base for the next four innings.

The offense, meanwhile, chipped away at veteran Reds right-hander Zack Littell, stressing him with constant early traffic before eventually breaking through in the third, when Ben Rortvedt sliced a leadoff double down the left-field line and Mookie Betts scored him with an RBI single.

The Dodgers then went in front in the fourth, thanks to a big swing from a familiar postseason hero. After a leadoff single from Max Muncy, Kiké Hernández smacked an elevated fastball into the right-center field gap. Muncy scored all the way from first to tie the game. Hernández, whom the Dodgers have re-signed each of the past two offseasons thanks largely to his playoff reputation, had his latest moment of fall-time magic.

Hernández would come around to score in the next at-bat, when Miguel Rojas dumped a base hit inside the right-field line.

From there, the score remained 3-2 until the sixth inning — when the game climaxed in two memorable sequences.

First, Yamamoto had to wiggle out of red-alarm danger, facing a bases-loaded jam with no outs after the Reds led off with three-straight singles. At that point, the right-hander’s pitch count was climbing. Blake Treinen started to get loose in the bullpen. But manager Dave Roberts, as he promised entering the playoffs, kept his faith in his starter.

Yamamoto rewarded him for it.

After Austin Hays bounced a grounder to Betts that the shortstop threw home for a forceout, Yamamoto slammed the door with back-to-back strikeouts. Stewart fanned on one curveball. De La Cruz couldn’t check his swing on another. Yamamoto celebrated with a primal scream. A crowd of 50,465 erupted around him.

The cheers continued into the bottom half of the inning, as the Dodgers finally pulled away with an outburst from their offense. It started with a single from Kiké Hernández, marking his second-straight two-hit game to begin these playoffs. It was aided by a throwing error from Stewart at first base, allowing Rortvedt to reach safely and put runners on the corners. Shohei Ohtani then knocked in one insurance run on an RBI single. Betts added another with a one-hopper that got past third baseman Ke’Bryan Hayes for an RBI double.

And fittingly, it was Teoscar Hernández who delivered the death blow, following an intentional walk to Freddie Freeman with a two-run, bases-loaded, redemption-rich double.

The Dodgers eventually stretched the lead to 8-2, when Betts drove in his third run of the game with his third double of the night in the bottom of the seventh — giving him four total hits in a contest for the third time in his career.

Dodgers manager Dave Roberts speaks with pitcher Emmet Sheehan before removing him from the game in the eighth inning Wednesday.

(Gina Ferazzi / Los Angeles Times)

Then came the bullpen, which once again thrust itself into danger after Emmet Sheehan gave up two runs in the eighth on two singles and two walks; his command so shaky, Roberts decided to pull him in the middle of an at-bat against Will Benson after he nearly plunked the batter in an 0-and-2 count.

However, it was mostly smooth sailing from there. Alex Vesia took over, and retired the side by striking out two of three batters (even though there was another walk in-between).

The ninth inning, meanwhile, belonged to Sasaki, who retired the side in order with 100-mph fastballs and his trademark splitter, ending a night of theatrics by sending the Dodgers to the next round.

It was picture day at Dodger Stadium on Tuesday, one of those quaint baseball traditions that has endured long past its usefulness.

So the team set up three rows of aluminum risers in shallow center field and the players, wearing impossibly white uniforms, filed out of the clubhouse just before 3 p.m., passing up batting practice to pose for the cameras. For a sport that thrives on routine, the afternoon had a unique last-day-of-school vibe.

“It’s a weird day,” manager Dave Roberts agreed.

But picture day also serves to bring the end of the season into tighter focus since it usually happens in the final three weeks. And the players who climb those risers are the ones who will decide the team’s postseason fate.

That was especially true for the Dodgers, who rode another splendid pitching performance — this one from Emmet Sheehan — to a 7-2 victory over the Colorado Rockies. Sheehan, bidding for a spot in the playoff rotation, was backed by four homers, including a pair of solo shots from Teoscar Hernández, who had his first three-hit night in more than a month.

The win, the team’s third in a row, coupled with San Diego’s loss to Cincinnati, expanded the Dodgers’ lead in the National League West to two games over the second-place Padres with just 17 left to play.

“It’s getting down to the wire,” Roberts said.

The Dodgers’ starting pitching is already in postseason form, posting a 1.41 ERA over the past five games. On Tuesday it was Sheehan’s turn on the mound and he set down the first 15 Rockies in order, becoming the third Dodger starter in four games to take a no-hitter into the sixth inning.

He wound up scattering three hits and a walk over seven innings, striking out nine to earn his fourth victory in five decisions. The win was also Sheehan’s fourth victory in as many appearances against Colorado.

Roberts said his team’s starting pitchers are all competing to one-up each other, giving the significance of the games now.

“They’re feeding off one another,” he said. “The pitchers are of the mind that these are very, very important games. It’s kind of the playoff mentality. The catchers are calling games in that vein.

“The defense has been really focused getting off the baseball. There’s a heightened level of focus across the board.”

That even spread to the offense, said Mookie Betts, whose two-run home run in the third extended his streak of reaching base safely to 15 straight games.

Mookie Betts is very happy after his two-run homer in the third inning.

(Gina Ferazzi / Los Angeles Times)

“It’s really neat being on this side,” Betts, who had multiple RBIs for a fourth straight game, said of watching the Dodger pitchers work. “If you kind of take a step back and look at it, there’s a lot of teams that would ask for something like this. Those guys give us opportunity to win every day.

“It’s really important for us as on the offensive side not to take that for granted.”

Although the Dodgers entered Tuesday second to last in the majors with an average of 3.14 runs a game in September, against Colorado starter Germán Márquez (3-13), whose ERA (6.31) looks more like a mortgage rate, they ran out to a 5-0 lead after five innings. As a result the focus turned to Sheehan, who needed just 59 pitches to cruise through five perfect innings, striking out five.

“I probably knew,” Sheehan, pitching on the 60th anniversary of Sandy Koufax’s perfect game, said when asked if he was aware he was more than halfway to matching that. “But I was definitely not thinking about it.”

The right-hander said he tried to cross up the Rockies by moving away from his fastball and going with a slider to the glove side instead.

“I felt like I was executing the slider pretty well,” he said. “The more I throw it, the easier it gets to get it to that spot. It’s an important pitch for me.”

Kyle Karros ended the suspense when he lined Sheehan’s first pitch of the sixth inning over a leaping Max Muncy at third for a single. Two more singles brought Karros around to score, ending the shutout as well.

Still Sheehan (6-3) was more than good enough to win for the fourth time in five decisions, lowering his ERA to 3.32 and forcing his way into the conversation over a role on the postseason roster.

“He’s unflappable,” Roberts said. “He knows he’s talented and he knows how to execute pitches. He’s got good stuff. No moment is too big for him. So I can’t speak to what role, but I know that he’s a viable option for us now and going forward.”

Tuesday’s win also left Sheehan unbeaten on picture day, something he nearly skipped as the scheduled starting pitcher.

“I wasn’t going go out there,” he said. “But I was like, I missed the last two. I gotta be out there.”

After all, it’s a tradition.

PITTSBURGH — It was not quite a benching. But it served as a reminder nonetheless.

Last year, in many ways, Teoscar Hernández was the heart and soul of the Dodgers. Not their best player. Nor their biggest star. But someone who provided effervescent vibes in the clubhouse, veteran leadership in the dugout and clutch hits in several of the season’s biggest moments at the plate.

“Teo is a guy that we counted on a lot last year,” manager Dave Roberts said. “He’s a guy that I really admire, because he can balance the fun part of baseball but also have that edge.”

This year, however, frustration has doused much of the fun. Struggles have dulled his usual edge.

Between injuries, slumps, defensive miscues and mechanical swing flaws, Hernández has endured one of his worst career seasons. He is batting just .247, his lowest since 2019. He has a .734 OPS, the lowest of his career and just a smidge above league-average. His limited range in right field has led to a flurry of dropped balls and some of the poorest defensive metrics of any big leaguer at the position. And going back to the last week of June, no other Dodger player (not even Michael Conforto) has been worth fewer wins above replacement than Hernández’s negative-0.5 mark, according to Fangraphs.

“For me, not being the same as last year is a little frustrating,” Hernández said. “I don’t want to be like that. I want to be better than last year. But it’s baseball. It’s life. You just have to keep working, keep trusting in yourself and the things that you can do to help the team.”

Last weekend, however, Roberts had a different idea. In the midst of Hernández’s latest cold spell, the outfielder was unexpectedly benched for Sunday’s series finale against the Arizona Diamondbacks.

“He’s an every-day guy,” Roberts said that day. “But I do think that where we’re at, you’ve got to perform, too, to warrant being out there every single day.”

The move wasn’t punitive, with Roberts also accounting for Monday’s off day in hopes “a two-day reset could help” the two-time All-Star.

But still, with the stretch run of the season nearing, the manager was dropping a hint to his star slugger as well.

“I think we’ve lost a little bit of that edge over the last couple months,” Roberts said Tuesday of Hernández, having had “numerous conversations” to communicate the same message with him personally.

“For me, I want to see that edge, that fight, that fire, and I’ll bet on any result. I just want to see that. We’re past the mechanical part of [his struggles with his swing]. Let’s just get into the fight. I’ve seen it. And I believe that’s what’s to come in the next month and beyond.”

This is not the position the Dodgers expected to be in when they re-signed Hernández to a three-year, $66 million contract this offseason — a move Roberts described as a “no-brainer” at the time after pushing for the front office to bring the free-agent back to Los Angeles.

He trusted Hernández’s bat, which mashed 33 home runs and 99 RBIs in his debut Dodgers season in 2024. He appreciated Hernández’s heartbeat, and how he delivered one of the season’s biggest swings in the fifth inning of Game 5 of the World Series.

In bringing Hernández back, the Dodgers hoped that his mere presence would elevate the rest of the roster for this year’s championship defense.

“He knows his value for our ballclub,” Roberts said. “He knows my expectations of him individually.”

Only, to this point, Hernández has struggled to replicate that same intangible magic.

After a blistering start to the season (.315 average, nine home runs, and an MLB-most 34 RBIs through his first 33 games), the outfielder suffered a groin/adductor strain while stretching for a line drive in Miami, landing him on the injured list for two weeks. When he returned, he looked far from 100%, struggling to rediscover his swing or cover much ground in right. Before long, a slump took hold. And as it stretched on through the summer — compounded by foot contusion on a foul ball he suffered in July — frustration began to mount.

“It’s tough when you feel good and then something happens and you have to miss … whatever the amount of games might be,” Hernández said. “It was one of those for me this year. I got injured, then I came back. I fouled it off my foot and then missed games [again].”

He later added: “For me, being hurt is more frustrating than having a bad year. I’d rather be on the field having a bad year, than not being on the field and just fighting back and forth.”

Staying on the field, of course, hasn’t alleviated Hernández’s problems. After the All-Star break, he said his body finally started feeling better. On Tuesday, he proclaimed his groin and foot to be back to full health.

And yet, over his previous eight games, he had batted only three-for-27 leading up to Sunday’s removal from the lineup. Worse than that, he had fallen back into a habit of chasing too much, leading to non-competitive at-bats at a time Roberts had been trying to emphasize the opposite.

“[I want to see] Teo getting back to having that edge,” Roberts reiterated.

In Hernández’s return to the lineup Tuesday, some positive signs finally presented themselves. He fought off a pair of two-strike pitches before lining a second-inning single. He did the same thing in the third inning to drive in a run. Defensively, there was another awkward moment, when Hernández failed to make a sliding catch on a shallow fly ball down the right-field line in the Pittsburgh Pirates’ four-run first inning. But even on that play, Roberts argued postgame, Hernández got a good jump and covered a lot of ground — breaking into the kind of hard-charging sprint that hadn’t always been there earlier this season.

“If I see a good jump getting off the ball, good effort, I’ve got no problem with it,” Roberts said.

Really, that’s all Roberts is hoping for from Hernández moving forward now.

To have the kind of consistent intensity level that has wavered at times this season. To rekindle that balance of having fun and playing with an edge down the stretch run of the season.

“We’re going to see that,” Roberts said. “I have no doubt.”

“You just leave everything on the field,” Hernández echoed. “I’m going to keep working, keep doing my routine, keep doing the stuff that I normally do to get back on track. And hopefully I get the results that I want to help the team.”

DENVER — Mookie Betts was back at shortstop and Teoscar Hernández remained in right field for the Dodgers on Tuesday, a day after two questionable fielding plays in the outfield led to two runs in a 4-3 walk-off loss to the last-place Colorado Rockies.

Hernández’s defense has increasingly become a matter of concern for manager Dave Roberts and Monday’s loss was followed by a meeting involving Roberts; Andrew Friedman, the Dodgers president of baseball operations; and Betts, who has expressed a willingness to move back to right field where he was a six-time Gold Glove winner.

Hernández is ranked 64^th among National League right fielders with a defensive WAR of -0.4 and his two errors are tied for fourth-most in the league.

“He’s got to get better out there. There’s just no way to put it,” Roberts said after Monday’s game of Hernández. “It’s not a lack of effort. But, you know, we’ve just got to kind of get better. We do.”

Betts, meanwhile, twice led the American League in fielding average and putouts as the Boston Red Sox’s right fielder. But he’s played shortstop full-time this season.

“Defense is a big part of postseason baseball and winning baseball,” Roberts said.

Betts’ move to the infield has arguably weakened the Dodgers in two ways: Hernández’s defense and Betts’ offense. Playing the infield, especially shortstop, is far more taxing mentally than playing in the outfield and Betts is slashing a career-low .242/.312/.370 this season.

Moving Betts back to right field would likely mean using Alex Freeland or Miguel Rojas at shortstop, at least in the short term. Freeland played nearly 300 games at shortstop in the minors while Rojas has played more than 940 games there in the majors.

Hernández, second on the team with 74 RBIs and tied for second with 20 home runs, would then move to left field — a less-demanding position defensively than right field — in place of Michael Conforto, whose .190 batting average is the worst in the majors among players with at least 300 at-bats.

Moving Betts back to the outfield could be easier for Roberts when utility players Tommy Edman, Hyeseong Kim and Kiké Hernández return from the injured list, giving the manager more depth and flexibility. Kim, who will begin a rehab assignment this week, is the furthest along and could be back by early next week.

Shohei Ohtani was four weeks into his major league career when former Dodgers owner Frank McCourt pitched a gondola from Union Station to Dodger Stadium. Ohtani, then a rookie with the Angels and now a global superstar with the Dodgers, was 23.

Today, Ohtani is 31, and McCourt still has no official response to his pitch.

In an effort to accelerate a decision, as The Times reported last month, McCourt’s lobbyists latched onto a state bill designed to expedite transit projects and persuaded legislators to add language that would put an even speedier timeline on potential legal challenges to the gondola.

That bill is scheduled for consideration by an Assembly committee Wednesday, and more than 100 community members rallied Monday in opposition to the bill — or, at least, to the part that would benefit the gondola project.

The Los Angeles City Council last week approved — and Mayor Karen Bass signed — a resolution urging state legislators to drop the gondola part of the bill or dump the bill entirely.

“We are fighting a billionaire,” City Councilmember Eunisses Hernandez told the crowd. “How you doing today?”

There were snacks and stickers, T-shirts and tote bags, even bandanas for dogs (and there were lots of very good dogs). There were signs, both earnest and amusing (“Frank McCourt and the Aerial Cabins of Doom”).

Even if McCourt wins in Sacramento, Hernandez said, the City Council must approve the gondola project. In 2024, the council authorized a Dodger Stadium traffic study, intended to evaluate alternatives to the gondola, which could include expanding the current bus shuttles from Union Station and introducing the park-and-ride buses such as the ones that have operated for years at the Hollywood Bowl.

Last month — 16 months after the council authorized the study — the city’s department of transportation invited bidders to apply to conduct the study, via a 56-page document that explains what the city wants done, how to do it, and when the work should be completed.

Sixteen months?

Colin Sweeney, spokesman for the transportation department, said the preparation of contracts requires compliance with various city rules, coordination with several city departments, and availability of city staff.

“This process can take up to 24 months,” Sweeney said.

An artist’s rendering of the Dodger Stadium landing site of a proposed gondola project that would ferry up passengers to games.

(Aerial Rapid Transit Technologies / Kilograph)

The traffic study is due next fall. If it is delivered on time, that could be nearly a three-year wait for one study in advance of one vote for one of the several governmental approvals the gondola would require.

Is the city — or, at least, the elected representatives opposed to the gondola — slow-walking the project?

“We’re not slow-walking nothing,” said Hernandez, whose district includes Dodger Stadium. “This is how the city moves.”

The councilmember pointed to the tree behind her.

“It takes us 15 years to trim a tree,” she said.

Excuse me?

“We’ll trim this tree this year,” Hernandez said, “and we won’t get to it again for 15 years.”

The industry standard, she said, is five years.

In L.A. she said, it can take 10 years to fix a sidewalk, three to five years to cut a curb for a wheelchair, nine months to one year to repair a street light.

“When you have enough resources, you can do things like put a new section into a bill to fast-track your project,” Hernandez said. “When you have money, you can do that.”

But I wanted to flip the question: If McCourt can spend half a million bucks on lobbyists to try to push his project forward, and if he is approaching a decade with no decision, what hope do the rest of us have?

We need housing. We need parks. We need shade. And, yes, we need better ways to get in and out of Dodger Stadium.

Los Angeles Councilmember Eunisses Hernandez speaks during a news conference in December.

(Genaro Molina / Los Angeles Times)

“Do I believe we need to fast-track really good projects that have shown that there are financial plans behind them that will benefit the community?” Hernandez said. “If there are ways to do that ethically, let’s do it. But, if we’re talking about fast-tracking a project because you’ve got access to change state law, that’s not something we should be doing.

“Do I think there’s a lot of barriers to achieving good projects, whether they are housing developments or other transportation? I do. I think we can cut through some of that. I think we should.

“We need to deliver quicker for our people.”

It’s not just the city of Los Angeles. The gondola project has slogged through Metro since 2018.

Love him or loathe him, like the gondola or hate it, does Hernandez believe McCourt — or any other developer — should be able to get a yes or no on his proposed project within eight years?

“I believe he should, yeah,” Hernandez said. “One hundred percent. I think he should.”

Even if the gondola is approved, who knows whether any fan would be able to ride it to see Ohtani play? For now, the gondola is not approved, not financed, and not under construction. Ohtani’s contract with the Dodgers expires in another eight years.

Reporting from Sacramento — The state ethics agency cited the serious illness and death of key witnesses in its decision to drop charges that political contributions were laundered to the 2010 campaign of Assemblyman Roger Hernandez (D-West Covina).

Ending a protracted legal battle that began three years ago, the state Fair Political Practices Commission has also notified Hernandez’s attorney that it will not pursue allegations that the candidate failed to report spending on a mass mailing on the West Covina City Council elections.

“After a full investigation, the Enforcement Division did not find sufficient, reliable evidence to conclude that your client violated the [Political Reform] Act in this instance and is closing the file on this matter,” wrote Zachary W. Norton, an attorney for the FPPC, to Hernandez’s lawyer.

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The state agency launched the probe after receiving a citizen complaint questioning loans of $100,000 that Hernandez made to his campaign in 2009 and 2010.

The commission issued a finding of probable cause in January. At that time, an attorney for the state agency alleged Hernandez’s committee filed “an inaccurate semi-annual campaign statement with the Secretary of State, falsely reporting information regarding the true sources of contributions received.”

Hernandez challenged the allegations, and in preparing for an administrative hearing, commission attorneys found “inconsistencies in previous witness testimony” and that key witnesses were not available, Norton said.

“Specifically, one key witness has serious medical issues that would prevent him from testifying and another has passed away,” Norton wrote in the case-closing letter. “The standard for proving a violation of the Act administratively is based on the preponderance of the evidence and, at this point, the evidence is not sufficient to meet that standard.”

The allegation involving failure to report a mass mailer was dropped after Hernandez’s campaign provided information that the campaign staffer who approved it was not authorized to do so, Norton said.

Jimmy Gutierrez, an attorney for the Assemblyman, said the letter provides false excuses for why the case was dropped.

“They had issued probable cause findings with no facts whatsoever and they know it,” Gutierrez said. “There was absolutely no merit to it whatsoever.”

The Dodgers are leading the majors in on-base-plus-slugging percentage as an offense this year. They are second in the National League in scoring, and third in team batting average.

They have the league’s top players in hitting (Will Smith batting .324 and Freddie Freeman batting .306) and OPS (Shohei Ohtani at .982 and Smith at .963).

They figure to have several players who will get MVP votes at the end of the season, including the odds-on favorite for the award in Ohtani.

And yet, as the club enters the stretch run of the season, their lineup might be the biggest question mark in their bid to defend last year’s World Series championship. Since the start of July, they have scored the third-fewest runs in the majors, have the second-lowest team batting average and the fourth-lowest OPS.

They stayed relatively quiet at the trade deadline, hopeful a number of struggling superstars would get things going over the campaign’s final two months. But to this point, only Freeman (who endured a two-month slump before heating up again on their recent nine-game trip) has shown tangible signs of a late-season revival.

“If you look at it from the offensive side, as far as our guys, they’ll be the first to tell you they’ve got to perform better and more consistently,” manager Dave Roberts said this past weekend, after utility outfielder Alex Call became the team’s only deadline addition to the lineup. “That’s something that we’re all counting on … Now it’s up to all of us to go out there and do our jobs.”

While that’s true of most hitters in the lineup, all the way down to Andy Pages and (even before his most recent ankle injury flare-up) Tommy Edman, there are three star-level players in particular the Dodgers have been waiting to round back into form.

Here’s a look at the problems plaguing each of them:

Mookie Betts

First 15 games: .304 average, .554 slugging percentage, .954 OPS

Last 87 games: .222 average, .327 slugging percentage, .616 OPS

When asked on Sunday for the umpteenth time this season if he knew what was wrong with Mookie Betts’ swing, Roberts failed to come up with an answer.

“Honestly, no,” Roberts said. “I know that he and the hitting coaches have been working diligently, consistently, intentionally. I think that the first thing, the easiest thing, to say is it’s a mechanical thing. So I guess kind of that’s where he’s at. But also, I do believe that there’s a mental part of it, too, which is sort of beating him down a little bit.”

When Betts was presented with the same question later Sunday afternoon, after running a season-long hitless streak to 17 at-bats and watching his batting average dip to .233, he was left searching for divine intervention.

“I’ve done everything I can possibly do,” he said. “It’s up to God at this point.”

Betts’ struggles are not for a lack of effort. He spends hours in the batting cage before (and sometimes after) almost every game. He has tried mechanical tweaks and mental cues and fundamental drills that in the past would get him back on track.

His approach has largely remained sound, as he ranks in the top 20% of big-leaguers in chase rate, whiff rate and strikeouts percentage, per Baseball Savant’s Statcast data.

And while his bat speed is in the 11th percentile of MLB hitters (and down almost two mph from his 39-homer season in 2023), it’s also about the same as he had last year, when he was still a .289 hitter with 19 home runs (in just 116 games) and a .863 OPS (which only trailed Shohei Ohtani for the best on the team).

“I really don’t know what else to do,” he said. “I don’t have any answers.”

Perhaps the most confounding metric: Betts is in the 99th percentile in “squared-up” rate, a metric that effectively determines when a ball is hit off the sweet spot of the bat.

But, even when Betts does make solid contact, he simply isn’t generating as much power as he usually does — ranking among the bottom third of big-league hitters in average exit velocity and hard-hit percentage; and watching fly balls that used to leave the yard die at the warning track, if they even make it that far.

While he has been a victim of some bad luck (his expected .252 batting average is almost 20 points higher than his actual mark), he has had no choice but to “go back to the drawing board” time and time again this year — gradually grating on his confidence as answers continually fail to appear.

“I don’t know anybody in the world that would have confidence in the stretch that’s going on [for me],” he said. “It sucks when you don’t get stuff done.”

Betts can be a streaky hitter. And the Dodgers’ hope is that, at some point over these final two months, he’ll find something that unlocks more pop in his bat, and go on the kind of heater that can make him an effective producer at the top of the lineup again.

Until that happens, however, questions will persist. About whether his shortstop play is to blame for his offensive decline (a theory multiple rival evaluators have increasingly pointed to of late as a reason for his struggles). About whether age is simply catching up to the soon-to-be 33-year-old veteran. And about whether he will ever be the same hitter he was once, amid a season-long slump almost no one saw coming.

Shohei Ohtani

First 70 games (before resuming pitching): .297 average, 1.034 OPS, 24% strikeout rate

Last 40 games (since resuming pitching): .230 average, .886 OPS, 31% strikeout rate

The easy demarcation line for Ohtani this year has been before and after he returned to pitching in mid-June, with offensive production dropping even as his stuff has ticked up on the mound.

Ohtani has still been a relatively productive hitter since then, continuing to hit home runs at a league-leading pace (he is tied with Kyle Schwarber for the NL lead with 38 on the year).

But he has become a much easier out the last couple months, as well, epitomized first and foremost by his climbing strikeout rate.

An over-aggressive approach would figure to be the easy explanation here. And there have been times, Roberts noted, the slugger appears to get into a “swing mode” that prevents him from laying off bad pitches.

But on the whole this season, Ohtani is actually swinging less often than he did last year, chasing pitches at an almost identical rate and continuing to draw more walks than almost anyone in the majors (his 71 free passes are seventh-most this season).

Ohtani’s problem has been an increase in swing-and-miss, with the reigning MVP coming up empty on more than one-third of his hacks.

It might simply be a byproduct of the added physical workload he has taken on since resuming two-way duties. But he has insisted such problems remain fixable, citing a lack of balance and consistency in his swing mechanics.

Like Betts, Ohtani can also be prone to more extreme highs and lows over the course of a year. Last season, for example, he hit just .235 with an .886 OPS in August, before turning around in September and batting .393 with a 1.225 OPS.

The Dodgers could use another late-season tear like that again this term. Whether he can do it while also ramping up as a pitcher looms as one of the biggest questions facing the Dodgers down the stretch this year.

Teoscar Hernández

First 33 games (pre-groin strain): .315 average, nine home runs, .933 OPS, 18% strikeout rate

Last 57 games (post-groin strain): .211 average, seven home runs, .619 OPS, 28% strikeout rate

Hernández’s midseason drop-off is perhaps the easiest to explain of any recently scuffling Dodgers hitter.

Before suffering a groin/adductor strain in early May, he was on an All-Star (and potentially even MVP-caliber) pace after re-signing with the Dodgers in the offseason.

Since then, however, the 32-year-old simply hasn’t looked the same — both at the plate, where he hasn’t been able to drive the ball as he usually does, and in the field, where his range has been clearly limited.

To that end, a foul ball he took off his foot last month hasn’t helped matters either.

There have been some recent signs that Hernández is getting healthy again. His slugging percentage has started to tick back up since getting a week off for the All-Star break. He has had more hard contact, especially to center and the opposite field.

“At the beginning [after my injury] it was a little hard,” Hernández said after hitting home runs in consecutive games at Fenway Park last week. “First I got my groin, then I got the foul off my foot. Couldn’t put a lot of weight [on it] for like two weeks. Thank God there was the break in there. I got those four days off, going through that and getting some treatment, getting some rest. And finally feel like myself again.”

But, it still hasn’t resulted in a total reversal of fortunes, with Hernández finishing the road trip going just five-for-25 with nine strikeouts and only one extra-base hit.

Last year, Hernández’s ability to be a run-producer behind the Dodgers’ star trio of hitters was crucial to both their regular-season and postseason offensive success. Lately, though, he has been more strikeout-prone and less opportunistic at the plate, contributing to a string of frustrating recent defeats marked by squandered chances in leverage opportunities.

“He’s bearing down, and he’s not trying to give at-bats away,” Roberts said. “He’s grinding.”

Much like the Dodgers’ other scuffling stars, the team will need him to fully snap out of it, and live up once again to the expectations the club had for him and the lineup at large.

Seth Hernandez has imagined his name being announced for years at the MLB amateur draft. It finally happened Sunday. The Gatorade national player of the year and two-time L.A. Times player of the year from Corona High School was chosen No. 6 overall by the Pittsburgh Pirates.

The Pirates have been successful with Southern California pitchers, having drafted Gerrit Cole (Orange Lutheran), Paul Skenes (El Toro) and Jared Jones (La Mirada) in the past. And they took Warren pitcher Angel Cervantes in the second round on Sunday.

It was an historic opening draft for Corona High, because for the first time, a single high school produced three first-round draft picks. Shortstop Billy Carlson went No. 10 to the Chicago White Sox and third baseman Brady Ebel went No. 32 to the Milwaukee Brewers in joining Hernandez.

“It’s nuts,” said Corona coach Andy Wise, who went to gatherings at the Hernandez and Carlson houses. “It’s an absolute honor to have those kids in our program, and I couldn’t be happier for their families.”

Hernandez was considered the best right-handed high school pitcher in the draft after a sensational senior season in which he struck out 105 batters in 53 1/3 innings while walking only seven using a 99-mph fastball. His ERA was 0.39.

All signs indicate he’ll become the latest from a long list of outstanding pitchers groomed in sunny Southern California to make it to the majors. That includes Cy Young Award winners Jack McDowell (Sherman Oaks Notre Dame), Cole (Orange Lutheran) and Bret Saberhagen (Cleveland) and current standouts Skenes, Hunter Greene (Sherman Oaks Notre Dame) and Max Fried (Harvard-Westlake). He’s also a top athlete having hit two three-run home runs in a playoff game this year.

Wise said he has coached no one better. Hernandez missed his first two years of high school being home schooled. The last two seasons his pitching record was 18-1. He has a very good slider and changeup. He’s uniquely ready for the pressure and exposure ahead, having been watched closely for years by scouts and interviewed over and over.

Shortstop Gavin Fien from Great Oak was taken No. 12 by the Chicago White Sox.

In the second round, shortstop Cooper Flemming from Aliso Niguel went to Tampa Bay and shortstop Quentin Young from Oaks Christian was selected by the Minnesota Twins. Tennessee shortstop Dean Curley, a Northview grad, was chosen by the Cleveland Guardians.

The Colorado Rockies made USC third baseman Ethan Hedges the second pick of the third round. He’s a former Mater Dei standout. Former Lakewood pitcher Anthony Eyanson from LSU was selected by the Boston Red Sox at No. 87. Former Sherman Oaks Notre Dame first baseman Jack Gurevitch of San Diego went to the St. Louis Cardinals at No. 89. Former Huntington Beach pitcher Ben Jacobs of Arizona State went No. 98 to the Detroit Tigers.

High school shortstop Eli Willits from Oklahoma was taken No. 1 by the Washington Nationals.