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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.

PITTSBURGH — Dodgers catcher Will Smith was out of the lineup for a third straight game on Tuesday against the Pirates, the stiffness in his neck still lingering. He’ll probably also be sidelined Wednesday, Dodgers manager Dave Roberts said.

“Now the [injured list] is more of a possibility,” Roberts said, noting that the minimum for positions players is 10 days. “We’re starting to talk about that.”

Teams can backdate IL moves by up to three days. Smith’s neck issue cropped up Saturday, when he was scratched from the Dodgers’ lineup against the Angels. Though Roberts speculated then that Smith could have slept on it awkwardly, he said the cause of the injury is unclear.

Smith played catch Tuesday, Roberts said, which “went OK,” but Smith’s neck bothers him the most while swinging.

“It’s still a day-to-day situation,” Robers said. “But for me, just talking to him, talking to the trainers, I would like him to go through a full day (of work) before he plays. So that would probably take [Wednesday] off the table. And then we’ll kind of go from there.”

In Smith’s absence, 25-year-old Dalton Rushing has started three straight games behind the plate, including his four-hit performance in the series finale against the Angels, and six of the last nine games.

“This year my whole goal was to make sure, if there’s an opportunity [when] Will needs rest … make sure that I can provide just as much as he does with the bat as well as behind the plate,” Rushing said Saturday. “That’s something I’m obviously continuing to work toward. Whatever he needs, I’ll be here. He knows I’ll catch seven days a week. He knows I’ll catch every game if he can’t go back there.”

If the Dodgers were to put Smith on the IL, it’s unclear who would back up Rushing. After releasing Seby Zavala last week, the Dodgers’ triple-A catchers are Eliezer Alfonzo and Chuckie Robinson, both journeymen with only Robinson having some major-league experience.

Dodgers utility man Kiké Hernández’s said he was hoping for “somewhat good news tomorrow” after leaving Tuesday’s game with an oblique injury.

But on Wednesday, an MRI exam showed a “significant tear” in his left oblique, Dodgers manager Dave Roberts said. Hernández is expected to be out six to eight weeks, but recovery timelines for oblique strains vary, depending on how long it takes the player to become symptom-free.

“You don’t really know what the timeline is, but it’s certainly warranting an IL stint,” Roberts said.

In a corresponding move, infielder Alex Freeland was called up from triple-A Oklahoma City.

After returning from a offseason surgery on his left elbow, the 34-year-old Hernández went four for four, including a home run and two RBIs.

However, Hernández said he tweaked his oblique during batting practice Monday, though he felt fine enough to play. The pain returned after his third-inning home run swing, and he was pulled in the top of the fifth Tuesday.

In his absence, the Dodgers will be splitting time between Freeland and Hyeseong Kim, with Freeland getting the majority of the reps. The Dodgers are also navigating third baseman Max Muncy’s return.

“Right now, he’s earned the opportunity to get some looks consistently, and it’s a credit to him to go back down and play well,” Roberts said of Freeland.

In 33 games with the Dodgers, Freeland collected 23 hits and 2 home runs, walking 11 times.

But his time in the minor leagues was productive, as he hit .265 with four home runs and 16 RBIs in 11 games with the Comets.

“It was great, that’s what we talked about doing is going down there and knocking the door down and taking that frustration out on those pitchers,” Roberts said. “And that’s what he did.”

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Freeland’s next step is to show he can make those improvements against Major League pitching. His first chance will be against the Colorado Rockies’ Tomoyuki Sugano as Freeland was inserted into the starting lineup at second base.

“You know you’re in a big room, and you’re trying to find your way, not make mistakes,” Roberts said of Freeland. “[He has to] give himself some grace and go out there and play hard and be a tough out. Go out there and play defense, and then good things happen.

With Freeland playing, Kim will take a backseat. In the 27-year-old’s 42 games with the Dodgers, Kim hasn’t reached his previous successes from last season. Currently, he is batting .254 with 29 hits and 11 RBIs.

When asked about how the Dodgers plan to balance also getting Kim some at-bats, Roberts replied: “Hyeseong’s gotten a lot of runway, certainly versus right-handed pitching, and I think that right now it’s skewing towards Alex getting more of the opportunities.”

Dodgers utility man Kiké Hernández sat with manager Dave Roberts on the dugout bench for a while after he was lifted from a 15-6 win over the Rockies on Tuesday with what the team later called a left oblique strain.

“He understood how frustrated I was,” Hernández said, “and he was trying to get me to keep my head up.”

The Dodgers plan to put Hernández on the 10-day injured list and recall infielder Alex Freeland, Roberts said after the game. Hernández expects to know more about the severity of the injury Wednesday.

“It’s a bummer,” Roberts said after the game. “He’s missed a lot of time and worked hard to get back, was in great shape, added that spark that we had hoped.”

It was his second game of the season, after starting the year on the injured list after offseason surgery on his left elbow. And he was driving the ball hard.

But he said he initially tweaked his oblique before his season debut, during batting practice Monday.

“I was pretty embarrassed about it,” Hernández said. “I thought it was just weird tightness. Never done an oblique before. So I didn’t really know what I was feeling. Came in today, wasn’t feeling great. I got treatment, but I thought I could play. … Compared to some of the things I’ve played through in the past, it was nothing.

“And, yeah, it was a little more than nothing”

In Hernández’s first at-bat Tuesday, leading off the third inning, he launched a solo home run. That swing, however, “felt awful.”

In between innings, he felt it throwing to first.

In his second at-bat he swung and missed before doubling as part of a four-run rally in the fourth inning. Neither swing felt good. When it also hurt running the bases, he knew it was time to come out of the game.

“Any other year, I would have at least tried to finish the game,” Hernández said. “But … when I was with the Red Sox, going through my core injury, last year with my elbow, I just keep going through things and I make things a lot worse. Today was one of those games that I felt like if I kept going, I was probably going to really, really put myself in danger of missing the rest of the season. So I just told him that I couldn’t go anymore.”

After talking with Roberts, Hernández stood up and disappeared down the tunnel. He was replaced in the lineup by Hyeseong Kim, with Miguel Rojas sliding over from second base to third in the top of the fifth inning.

“Frustrating to say the least,” Hernández said. “Not just because I missed time, but me coming back got somebody off the roster— those types of things. I was only able to give the team four at-bats. Yeah, tough. I feel pretty defeated right now. Hopefully we get somewhat good news tomorrow.”

Hernández had been filling in for Max Muncy at third base, while Muncy recovered from being hit by a pitch on the right wrist on Friday in Milwaukee. But Muncy will be in the lineup Wednesday, Roberts said, after testing his wrist before the game by throwing to bases and hitting on the field. He entered the game Tuesday in the top of the ninth and fielded a groundout.

So, the Dodgers will have options in the infield, even after designating Santiago Espinal for assignment Monday to activate Hernández. Freeland is expected to fill the utility player role. But Hernández made an immediate difference in just two games.

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After Hernández helped jump-start the offense Tuesday, it kept piling on. Mookie Betts had a two-homer game, his first in over a year. Andy Pages’ four-hit game tied a career high. The team combined for 17 hits and 15 runs, both matching season highs.

By the end, both teams had position players pitching. And the Rockies scored all but one of their runs off Rojas.

Ohtani to pitch despite HBP

In the fourth inning, right after Hernández’s double, Rockies starting pitcher Kyle Freeland hit Shohei Ohtani in the right hand with an 85.2-mph changeup.

Ohtani spun and winced but then strode straight to first base. The next inning, Dalton Rushing pinch hit for him.

Shohei Ohtani reacts after getting hit by pitch on his right hand in the fourth inning.

(Gina Ferazzi / Los Angeles Times)

Ohtani still scheduled to start on the mound Wednesday, Roberts said. But his hitting status went from likely to undecided.

“I just want to make sure, how he comes in and physically how he feels,” Roberts said. “Want to make sure he feels really good on the pitching side of things.”

Roberts doesn’t expect Ohtani to need X-rays on his hand, saying the pitch mostly hit the padding on his batting gloves.