landon knack

It was supposed to be a day off for Freddie Freeman.

Dodgers manager Dave Roberts quipped before the game that the 35-year-old veteran first baseman had begun to understand the value of an off day as he’s dealt with discomfort in his ankle this season.

But with the go-ahead run on second base in the eighth inning, Roberts summoned Freeman off the bench. Was it time for another magical, Freddie Freeman moment at Chavez Ravine?

Not so fast. Mets manager Carlos Mendoza called for an intentional walk, and up walked Michael Conforto. The 46,364 fans at Dodger Stadium already booed the struggling outfielder after his third-inning strikeout. Hitting .165 entering the game, he was one of the unlikeliest to lead the Dodgers to a comeback victory. He’d yet to come through.

But all Conforto needed was one hit, one chance. And he delivered.

Against Mets setup man Reed Garrett, Conforto ripped a go-ahead RBI single into left field, helping the Dodgers complete a three-run comeback to defeat the Mets 6-5 and salvage a series split against a potential NL playoff opponent.

“It’s been a grind up to this point,” Conforto said. “All I want to do is go up there and help us win. A lot of those situations I’ve come up short, so to come through today was everything.”

Closer Tanner Scott earned his first save since May 21 with a shutdown ninth inning, his second scoreless outing in a row.

Conforto’s first hit with runners in scoring position since March 31 — and his first hit this season with runners in scoring position with two outs — put the Dodgers (38-25) two games ahead of the Padres in the NL West after their 3-2 loss to the Giants on Thursday.

In recent weeks, the Dodgers clubhouse showed support to Conforto during his slump. Mookie Betts said that Conforto’s struggles were also the team’s.

“These guys have been awesome,” Conforto said of his teammates. “You spend more time with these guys than your actual family, so they’ve been part of my family. Just trying to keep me smiling, keep me laughing, so it’s been great to have their support.”

Before Conforto’s go-ahead single, Will Smith doubled home Betts, who reached on a walk. Andy Pages scraped a ball off the ground — causing havoc in the Mets’ infield and a throwing error from Brett Baty — allowing Smith to score.

For manager Dave Roberts, rallies such as Thursday’s show the might of his ballclub, he said.

“Reed Garrett’s obviously had a great year up to this point,” Roberts said. “They got a good pen. They pitch well. But the free passes, like you guys saw today, when you give teams free passes, innings are built and runs are created.”

Mets left-hander David Peterson had made things difficult before the eighth. He struck out six and gave up three runs across seven innings.

Dodgers pitcher Landon Knack reacts after giving up a home run to New York Mets outfielder Starling Marte, left, in the third inning Thursday.

(Gina Ferazzi / Los Angeles Times)

The longevity the Mets (39-24) got from Peterson, however, was the opposite of what the Dodgers received from right-hander Landon Knack.

Knack had turned a corner across his last two outings. Against both New York teams, he twirled a career-high-tying six innings and gave up just one earned run in each start. Dodgers pitching coach Mark Prior paid close attention to Knack’s adjustments, praising his rise from early-season appearances in which he was bounced from games, giving up five runs against the Nationals and Athletics.

“His ability is to be able to throw multiple pitches in any count, in any situation, and that was a little bit off early on,” Prior said, “but now I think he’s starting to finally get into the groove and kind of get back to where he was throwing the ball last year.”

Prior noted what Knack could do when he’s on — mixing pitches and speeds, making for off-balance at-bats. But he also explained what happens when Knack is off — leaving pitches in the middle zone, while falling behind in counts.

Pete Alonso slides past Dodgers catcher Will Smith to score a run for the Mets in the third inning Thursday.

(Gina Ferazzi / Los Angeles Times)

Knack was at his least effective Thursday. He gave up four runs — including three home runs — leaving fastballs over the plate to Pete Alonso and Starling Marte in the first and third innings. He also walked five across 3 ⅓ innings.

“Today [my mechanics] just got a little bit out of whack there for a minute, but I think I have made too much talk on just kind of like trying — we’re getting close, we’re feeling this, feeling that — and I think it’s time to just do it,” Knack said. “To stop talking about it and just go out there and do it.”

Roberts had to lean on his bullpen. Jack Dreyer took the ball through the middle of the fifth and José Ureña — who signed with the Dodgers on Tuesday — pitched 2 ⅓ innings to help save bullpen arms ahead of a six-game trip starting Friday in St. Louis.

Left-hander Justin Wrobleski will start for the Dodgers on Friday after being recalled from triple-A Oklahoma City, Roberts said. Wrobleski gave up five runs in four innings during his last triple-A appearance.

Dodgers pitcher Tanner Scott, right, celebrates with Will Smith after closing out a 6-5 win over the Mets on Thursday.

(Gina Ferazzi / Los Angeles Times)

Etc.

Roberts said right-handed relief pitchers Kirby Yates (right hamstring strain) and Michael Kopech (right shoulder impingement) have a “good possibility” of being activated off the injured list during the weekend series in St. Louis.

Likely candidates to be removed from the 26-man roster over the next few days are Ryan Loutos (five earned runs in three innings with the Dodgers) — who gave up a three-run home run in Wednesday’s 6-1 loss to the Mets — and Ureña.

Outfielders James Outman and Esteury Ruiz both had lockers in the Dodgers clubhouse Thursday. Roberts said the duo were on the taxi squad — as insurance for Hyeseong Kim and Tommy Edman — and would likely be headed back to triple-A later in the day.

Roberts gave clean bills of health to Edman (right ankle) and Kim (fouled a ball off his foot). Edman returned to the Dodgers’ lineup after two days off and hit sixth at second base.

“Looks like we’re out of the clear with those two active guys,” Roberts said.

Dodger Stadium was eerily quiet for much of Monday night. And not just because whole sections of the upper deck sat largely empty.

In a 9-5 loss to the Arizona Diamondbacks, the Dodgers didn’t just drop their fourth straight game, but turned in a performance that elicited as many boos as anything else at Chavez Ravine, stumbling to a season-worst losing streak on a night they did little right in any facet of the game.

There was bad defense early. In the first inning, center fielder Hyeseong Kim lost a fly ball in the twilight sky, leading to two runs that would have been unearned had it not been ruled a double. In the second, third baseman Max Muncy spiked a throw to first on a slow-rolling grounder that led to another preventable score, even though his miscue was also ruled a base hit.

The pitching wasn’t great either. Left-handed opener Jack Dreyer followed Muncy’s bad throw with an even wilder pitch to the backstop in the next at-bat, advancing the runner to set up an eventual sacrifice fly. Landon Knack took over in the third and promptly gave up a pair of two-run home runs, one to Lourdes Gurriel Jr. on a down-and-in slider and another to Gabriel Moreno on an inside fastball.

Even the few bright spots offensively weren’t close to being enough.

Mookie Betts hit two home runs in his continued search to break out of a slow start. Shohei Ohtani retook sole possession of the major league lead in long balls by whacking his 17th of the season. But all three blasts came with no one on base. And they represented the Dodgers’ only hits of the night against Arizona right-hander Brandon Pfaadt, who was otherwise unbothered in a six-inning effort that included no strikeouts (or even a single swing-and-miss from a Dodgers hitter) but plenty of fine plays from an athletic defense behind him.

“It’s hard to start games behind before you take an at-bat,” manager Dave Roberts said. “We’ve given up runs in the first inning. We got to put up that zero and kind of get a chance to get the game going.”

While shaky defense and inconsistent production at the plate have been bugaboos for the Dodgers (29-19), it is the team’s increasingly pitching struggles that have stood out most during this four-game skid — the club’s longest since losing five in a row in late May last season.

With the loss to the Diamondbacks (26-22), the Dodgers own a team earned-run average of 4.28, which ranks 22nd in the majors and is their highest at this point in a campaign since 2010.

The main root of the problem is easy to identify. Starters Tyler Glasnow, Blake Snell and Roki Sasaki remain on the injured list, forcing the club into plans such as Monday with a rookie in Dreyer opening for a depth arm in Knack. The bullpen has been shorthanded, too, with Blake Treinen, Evan Phillips and Kirby Yates all injured, as well.

“You go through certain situations like this, it’s just tough to find a way to get back healthy and get our guys back out there,” Betts said. “But we’re battling with what we got.”

Arizona’s Gabriel Moreno, right, celebrates with teammate Josh Naylor after hitting a two-run home run in the third inning Monday.

(Kyusung Gong / Associated Press)

The good news is that several of those sidelined options are on the mend. Glasnow and Snell are both progressing in their throwing programs, with Glasnow “a tick ahead of Blake,” according to Roberts. Sasaki is expected to begin his throwing program during the team’s upcoming road trip. And Ohtani, who has been throwing regular bullpen sessions all season, is beginning to build up his pitch count as the club targets his return to the mound sometime around the All-Star break.

But in the meantime, the Dodgers have still expected more from their currently healthy group.

“It’s not the staff we thought we’d have this season, but I feel that what we still do [have], and have done in the past with injuries, we’re not doing,” Roberts said. “In the sense of getting ahead of hitters, and keeping them in the ballpark.”

And to do that, Roberts cited one place to start.

“On first glance, we need to be better at getting ahead in counts,” he said. “It doesn’t take a deep dive to see we start 1-and-0 quite often. When you do that, it makes pitching tough.”

Indeed, the Dodgers entered the night 24th in the majors with a 59.8% first-strike rate, a problem Roberts believes has led to too many long innings, and too large a workload for the staff.

“The 30-pitch innings just don’t play. It’s not sustainable,” he said. “And that starts with getting strike one. That ultimately goes to our entire pitching staff.”

The Dodgers were better in that area Monday, starting 27 of 49 at-bats with a strike. But it didn’t help. Dreyer needed 38 pitches to get through his two innings. Knack threw 106 to get through the next five (including 16 in one at-bat to Moreno in the fifth).

And when long reliever Matt Sauer took over in the eighth and gave up a two-run home run to Geraldo Perdomo, much of a season-low (and atypically quiet) crowd of 41,372 began streaming for the exits, not sticking around for one of the Dodgers’ flattest showings this year.