mookie betts

The day off was unanticipated.

The change to the lineup was even more of a surprise.

In what has become a season-long struggle by Mookie Betts and Dodgers coaches to get the slumping superstar back on track, this weekend brought the most glaring examples of experimentation yet.

First, on Saturday, manager Dave Roberts gave Betts an unexpected off day and providing what he felt was a needed mental reset after sensing Betts — who missed the All-Star Game for the first time in a decade this year — was still off despite his week-long break.

Then, on Sunday, Roberts gave the veteran slugger an unexpected challenge: Bumping him up from the two-hole to the leadoff spot in the batting order in hopes it would trigger something amid a career-worst season at the plate.

“Looking at how things are going, where Mookie is at emotionally, mechanics-wise, all in totality,” Roberts said, “I felt that giving him a different look in the lineup, hitting him at the top, something he’s obviously been accustomed to throughout his career, will put him in a mindset of just [trying] to get on base and just trying to take good at-bats.”

“There’s a lot of internal kind of searching that goes on with the mechanics and things like that,” Roberts added. “But I personally do feel that the external part of it — hitting at the top of the order, having a mindset to get on base — I think will help move this along better.”

It all served as the latest confounding chapter in what has been a trying season for Betts and his once-potent swing, the newest effort by the club to ease the frustration that has weighed on his mind amid a summer-long slump — while waiting for his mechanics to finally get back in sync.

Mookie Betts sits in the dugout in the first inning before batting against the Milwaukee Brewers on Sunday.

(Robert Gauthier / Los Angeles Times)

“This is a process I’ve never been through,” said a dejected Betts, who entered Monday sporting a .240 batting average (ranking 120th out of 158 qualified MLB hitters), .684 OPS (132nd) and 11 home runs (tied for 89th), to go with well-below-league-average marks in underlying metrics like average exit velocity (29th percentile among MLB hitters), hard-hit rate (20th percentile) and bat speed (12th percentile).

“I don’t have any answers,” he continued. “I don’t know how to get through this. I don’t know. I’m working every day. Hopefully it turns.”

The leadoff exercise started with mixed results Sunday. Betts singled in the third inning, one at-bat before new No. 2 man Shohei Ohtani hit a home run. But, in a failed ninth-inning rally that sent the Dodgers to a series sweep against the Milwaukee Brewers, he finished a one-for-five day by lining out sharply to center field, ending the game with Ohtani stuck in the on-deck circle.

Betts will continue to lead off for the foreseeable future, with Roberts committing to keeping him at the top of the order — and Ohtani, the team’s previous leadoff hitter, in the two spot — at least until Max Muncy makes his expected return from a knee injury sometime next month.

“The only way we’ll know, we’ll find out, is once we do that for an extended period of time,” Roberts said. “I do think that there will be some fallout from that kind of external mindset of, ‘Hey, I’m hitting at the top of the order. My job is to get on base, set the table for Shohei and the guys behind him.’ I think that will lead to better performance.”

Until such a turnaround actually materializes, however, the search for answers to Betts’ struggles will go on, with the Dodgers continuing to try to unravel the mystery behind a sudden, unsettling slump no one saw coming.

“I just got to play better,” Betts said. “I got to figure it out.”

Indeed, while his superstar teammates were at All-Star festivities in Atlanta last week, Betts spent the break back home in Nashville, working on his swing at a private training facility.

In one clip that emerged on social media, Betts was seen doing one of the many drills that have helped him maintain offensive excellence over his 12 big-league seasons: Taking hacks with a yellow ball pressed snuggly between his elbows, trying to promote the fluid and connected motion that has eluded him this year.

“With Mookie, a lot of it has to do with how his arms and hands work, and getting his arm structure properly lined up,” hitting coach Robert Van Scoyoc said. “It sets up how the bat slots, and how his body sequences.”

For Betts, a 5-foot-10 talent who has long exceeded expectations as one of the sport’s most undersized sluggers, such mechanical efficiency has always been paramount.

As he noted early this season, when his slump first came into focus in early May, he has never had the same margin for error as some of the sport’s more physically gifted star hitters. He can’t muscle doubles or hit home runs off the end of his bat. He can’t afford to have a bad bat path or disjointed swing sequence and be the same hitter who, just two years ago, batted .307 with 39 home runs.

“I can’t, unfortunately, not have my A-swing that day but still run into something and [have it] go over the fence or whatever,” Betts said back then. “Even when I have my A-swing, if I don’t get it, it’s not gonna be a homer. If I don’t flush that ball in that gap, they’re gonna catch it.”

And this season, much to his chagrin, flushing line drives and cranking big flies has become a frustrating rarity.

Identifying the reason why has led to countless potential theories.

At the start of the year, Betts believed he created bad swing habits while recovering from a March stomach bug that saw him lose 20 pounds and some of his already underwhelming bat speed.

But as he tried reverting to mental cues and mechanical feels that had recalibrated him in the past, nothing seemed to click in the same way they once did.

“The cues and feels that I’ve used my whole life, in Boston and L.A., just don’t work anymore,” he said this weekend. “So I’m just trying to find out who I am now, what works now.”

Some of that, of course, could be attributed to age. Betts will be 33 by the end of this season. He is coming up on 1,500 career games. Inevitably, even players of his caliber eventually start to decline physically.

Roberts, however, framed it more through the lens of evolution. On the one hand, he said of Betts, “I know he’s still in his prime. I know he’s as strong as he’s been in quite some time.” However, the manager added, “his body has changed and will continue to change,” requiring Betts to find new ways to maximize the power the team still believes he possesses.

“That’s the nature of hitting,” Van Scoyoc said. “He has to find something for him that works organically, that gets him lined up again.”

This dynamic is why, to both Betts and the Dodgers, his full-time move to shortstop this season hasn’t been to blame.

Betts has repeatedly pushed back against that narrative, pointing to the MVP-caliber numbers he posted while playing the position during the first half of last year (before a broken hand cost him two months and forced him to return to right field for the Dodgers’ World Series run) and the two-week tear with which he started this season (when he batted .304 with four home runs over his first 15 games).

Mookie Betts and the Dodgers continue to insist his season-long slump at the plate has little to do with his full-time move to shortstop.

(Robert Gauthier/Los Angeles Times)

And though his new defensive role has come with some added challenges — Betts said on his Bleacher Report podcast last month that his daily pregame workload has increased while playing shortstop, to the point “it probably does weigh on you a little bit hitting” — he has also emphasized the confidence he has gained from his defensive improvements; his shortstop play serving as the one thing that has gone right in a season of offensive misery.

“I just can’t see that you go out there and stick him in right field tonight and he’s going to throw out two hits or three hits, or he goes to second base and he’s going to go on a heater,” Roberts echoed earlier this month, before reiterating Sunday that the team has not considered changing Betts’ position. “That’s hard for me to kind of imagine. It’s a fair ask. But I just don’t see that as the case.”

Instead, the focus has remained not only on Betts’ flawed swing mechanics, but the resulting side effects it has had on his approach at the plate.

One stat that jumped out to Roberts recently: In Betts’ last 99 plate appearances, he has walked only one time — a shockingly low number for a hitter with a walk rate of nearly 11% over his career.

To Roberts, it’s a sign that Betts, in his ongoing search to get his swing synced up, is failing to accomplish the even more fundamental task of working good counts and waiting out mistakes.

“If you’re ‘in-between’ on spin versus velocity, and [getting in bad] counts, you’re not as convicted [with your swing],” Roberts said, tying all of Betts’ problems into one self-fulfilling cycle that has only further perpetuated his lack of results. “So my eyes tell me he’s been ‘in-between’ a lot.”

Which is why, in recent weeks, Roberts had started to mull the idea of moving Betts into the leadoff spot.

After all, the manager hypothesized, if Betts can’t find his swing by grinding in the batting cage and analyzing his mechanics — as he did during his off day on Saturday — then maybe reframing his mindset in games can better help him get there.

“It speaks to how much faith I have in him as a ballplayer,” Roberts said. “To, where he’s scuffling, not move him down but ironically move him higher in the order. “I think that kind of support, and the different way that he’ll see the lineup as it’s presented each day, will kind of lead into a different mindset and I think that’ll be a good thing for all of us.”

For now, the Dodgers can only hope.

With Muncy still out, Freddie Freeman having his own recent slump compounded by a ball that hit him in the left wrist on Sunday, and the Dodgers stuck in a current 2-10 spiral that has seen their once-comfortable division lead dwindle leading up to the trade deadline, they need the old Betts more than ever right now.

Thus far, the search for answers has met no end.

“It’s hard,” Betts said, “but I got to figure it out at some point.”

It took just one game coming out of the All-Star break for Dave Roberts to know Mookie Betts still wasn’t right.

A week ago, Roberts was hopeful that Betts — coming off his first missed All-Star Game in a decade — would return from the break refocused and rejuvenated; ready to snap out of a career-worst start to his season and rediscover a swing that has eluded him for much of the campaign.

Instead, in the Dodgers’ second-half opener Friday night, Betts went 0 for 4 with two strikeouts. His batting average dipped to .241 (more than 20 points worse than he has ever posted in a full season) while his OPS fell to .688 (the worst it has been all year). And, as has been the case for most of the summer, his signs of frustration were abundantly clear, with the 32-year-old looking lost at the plate.

Thus, when Roberts set his team’s lineup for Saturday, the manager made a surprise decision to leave Betts out of it, giving his superstar shortstop an unplanned day off after calling Betts on Saturday morning to discuss the state of his game.

“Talking to him, seeing where his head is at, seeing where he’s at mechanically, I just thought tonight was a night where I felt he needed to be down,” Roberts said hours later, ahead of the Dodgers’ game against the Milwaukee Brewers.

“He was more than willing and wanted to be out there. But for me, I wanted to take it out of his hands [so he could] have a day. I’ve talked about this before, just having players watch a baseball game. And I understand we just had four days off at the break. But still showing up at the ballpark, and not participating, watching, that’s a different mindset, psyche than being at home. So for him to come here, show up, not play, know he’s not going to play, I feel good about the work he’s going to put in today. Also, I think, for the mind it will be beneficial.”

Betts did not talk to reporters Saturday, but did go through his normal set of pregame infield drills at shortstop — further confirming that, indeed, his absence from the lineup had nothing to do with any sort of injury-related issue.

While Roberts said his “expectation” is that Betts will be back in action Sunday, he left the door open to giving Betts another day off for the series finale.

“It’s going to be a day-to-day thing,” Roberts said. “It’s going to be my decision on how I feel he is mentally to take on that night’s starter.”

There was no specific moment from Friday’s game that convinced Roberts such a break was warranted. Instead, it was the fact that so little had seemingly changed from where Betts was before the All-Star break, when he reached the midway mark in a three-for-24 slump and batting just .185 over his previous 31 games.

“He’s not used to struggling like this,” Roberts said of Betts, who also has only 11 home runs and a .377 slugging percentage. “There’s a part of it where you feel like you’re letting people down, letting the team down. That weight that is just natural for him to carry is there. That’s a little bit from last night, just seeing him.”

Betts has struggled to identify the cause of his decline — one so stark, he has a below-league-average mark of 95 in the all-encompassing OPS+ metric (effectively meaning he has been 5% less productive than a league average hitter).

In an interview before Friday’s game, he said he has cycled through various “feels” with his swing in hopes of getting his mechanics realigned. Hitting coach Robert Van Scoyoc pointed to inefficiencies in the way Betts “loads” his arms and hands, which he believes have impacted the slugger’s bat path and swing sequence.

“There’s no exact [fix], where you can do this, this and this,” Van Scoyoc said, “because he has to find something for him that works organically that gets him lined up.”

To that end, Roberts’ hope is that Saturday’s day off will help.

That it comes just two days into the second half signals how urgent Betts’ struggles have become.

“He understood,” Roberts said. “He’s a guy that wants to be out there every single day. But I think he understood that it was my decision and I think it’s best for him, I think it’s best for our ball club. He’ll be ready when called upon.”

Max Muncy knew he had gotten lucky, after his ugly-looking knee injury earlier this month proved to be nothing more than a bone bruise.

But, when doctors explained how close he came to suffering something so much worse, from when Michael A. Taylor slid into his leg at third base on July 2, even Muncy was amazed by the infinitesimal margins.

“If the timing was just a millisecond different either way,” he was told, “you’re probably looking at surgery, and done for a long time.”

Instead, barely two weeks removed from having the outside of his knee bent inward on that play, Muncy was out doing early work at Dodger Stadium on Friday afternoon; running in the outfield, playing catch with coaches and performing agility drills in front of trainers without any obvious signs of pain or discomfort.

“We’re pleasantly, not surprised, but happy with the spot that I’m in right now,” Muncy said afterward, having also taken swings for the first time since his injury earlier on Friday afternoon. “It feels great. I’m moving well. Progressing quickly. We’re trying to be smart about it, and understand where we’re at, and what it’s gonna take to get back on the field. But we’re in a really good spot … We’re kind of right where we think we should be at.”

If not, it seems, already a few steps ahead.

While Muncy was initially expected to miss roughly six weeks with his left knee bone bruise, manager Dave Roberts struck a more optimistic tone as the Dodgers opened the second half of their season.

“He’s in great shape right now,” Roberts said Friday. “I don’t really know a timeline. But I do know … it’s going to be a lot sooner than anticipated, which is good for all of us.”

Since Muncy — who was one of the hottest hitters in baseball in May and June — got hurt, the Dodgers have not looked like the same offense. In their last 11 games entering Saturday, the club was 3-8, averaging less than three runs per game, and struggling to fill the gaping hole their slugging third baseman has left in the middle of the lineup.

Since the start of July, only the penny-pinching Pittsburgh Pirates have been worse than the Dodgers in batting average (.205) and OPS (.594).

“We’ve still got a lot of good players,” Roberts said. “But yeah, there’s a certain line of demarcation when Max is not in the lineup, what happens to our offense.”

The Dodgers’ problems, of course, go beyond Muncy’s absence. Shohei Ohtani, Mookie Betts and Freddie Freeman have all been slumping of late (or, in Betts’ case, for much of the season). Teoscar Hernández and Tommy Edman have been nowhere near their typical standard since returning from injuries in May. And the depth options the Dodgers have called upon have provided few sparks of life.

Still, Muncy figures to be a linchpin in the Dodgers’ long-term potential at the plate — with his recovery growing ever-steadily in importance as the rest of the lineup flounders in his wake.

“We got to figure out how to get something going,” said outfielder Michael Conforto, chief among the Dodgers’ underachievers this season. “Every time we go out there, we expect to score, and that’s what we’ve been doing all year. It’s just one of those stretches [where it’s] a little bit tougher to get runs in. But, you know, obviously, we have faith in our guys, and some big names in here that made their careers on scoring runs and driving guys in. I think we’ll be OK.”

Muncy, of course, is one of those proven names.

And in another fortunate stroke with his recovery, he remains confident his injury won’t significantly impact his swing once he does come back.

“If [the injury] was on the inside of the knee, it’d probably be a different story,” Muncy said. “But just being on the outside, I think it’s a good spot, knowing that I don’t feel it at all when I’m pushing off on the backside.”

Muncy tested that theory for the first time Friday, taking some light swings in the cage that he said “felt fine.”

“It’s a lot of work, more work than actually playing in the game, which always sucks,” Muncy said of his rehab process. “But it’s that way for a reason … You don’t want to have any other injuries that are a side effect from it.”

So far, even that latter concern has been quelled, with Muncy noting that “there’s no lingering side effects with it.”

“All in all,” he reiterated, “we’re about as lucky as we could be.”

Shohei Ohtani has the bestselling jersey in baseball.

Again.

He is joined in the top four by Dodgers teammates Freddie Freeman and Mookie Betts.

Again.

According to rankings released Friday based on sales of Nike jerseys from the Fanatics network, fans have purchased Ohtani’s No. 17 Dodgers jersey more than that of any other player during the first half of the 2025 season.

It’s not Ohtani’s first time at the top of the jersey sales rankings. The two-way superstar from Japan was No. 1 for the 2023 regular season, his last with the Angels, and the 2024 regular season, his first with the Dodgers. His jersey was also the top seller during the most recent offseason, after he was named the 2024 National League MVP and won his first World Series championship.

According to MLB, Ohtani’s jerseys have sold more than any other player in the U.S., Japan and worldwide since 2023.

New York Yankees superstar and reigning American League MVP Aaron Judge is No. 2 on the 2025 list, followed by Freeman at No. 3 and Betts at No. 4. Freeman and Betts also joined Ohtani in the top four in sales during the offseason, with Freeman at No. 2 and Betts at No. 4.

For the 2024 regular season, Betts ranked at No. 4, while Freeman came in at No. 18. Freeman has been riding a wave of popularity since the World Series, during which he hit a walk-off grand slam in Game 1 and eventually was named the series MVP.

New York Mets star Francisco Lindor has the No. 5 jersey of 2025 so far, followed by Mets teammate Juan Soto, Rafael Devers of the San Francisco Giants, Jose Altuve of the Houston Astros, Fernando Tatis Jr. of the San Diego Padres and Bryce Harper of the Philadelphia Phillies.

Dodgers pitcher Clayton Kershaw, in his 18th MLB season, has the No. 20 bestselling jersey.

MILWAUKEE — The Dodgers have been here before.

This time last year, in a season that bore so many similarities to their current one, a first-place and highly touted Dodgers team temporarily lost its way.

Amid a deluge of pitching injuries (sound familiar?) and the absence of one of its hottest early-season hitters (Mookie Betts, who suffered a broken hand close to the same time Max Muncy went down with a knee injury this year), the club stumbled backward into the All-Star break, going 2-8 in its final 10 games of the first half and 1-5 in a Philadelphia/Detroit road trip that exposed undeniable flaws in its star-studded roster.

Twelve months later, another pre-All-Star-break tailspin has struck the now defending champions.

The Dodgers have lost six games in a row, swept in back-to-back series by the Houston Astros and the Milwaukee Brewers. Their romp through June and the first days of July (when they won 20 times in a 30-game stretch) has been stalled by sudden regression lately, with lackluster offense and a worn-down pitching staff contributing to the organization’s longest losing streak since April 2019.

Now, as he did then, manager Dave Roberts has downplayed any alarm.

“I think it is under the ‘it’s just baseball’ type thing,” Roberts said Wednesday after the Dodgers’ most deflating loss of their skid yet. “You never like to lose six in a row. It seems like we’re pitching OK. The defense at times has been really good. It’s just that right now we’re scuffling offensively, to have that big inning or to build an inning and get that big hit.”

But, also like back then, frustration is mounting as the Dodgers approach the trade deadline.

The Dodgers’ Hyeseong Kim looks up while swinging a bat during a game against the Milwaukee Brewers on Monday in Milwaukee.

(Aaron Gash / Associated Press)

“We can’t really feel sorry about ourselves, because there’s a lot of season left, and we know what we’re looking for,” veteran infielder Miguel Rojas said. “We’re looking to win another championship, and playing this kind of baseball is not gonna get us there.”

By “this kind of baseball,” Rojas means this kind of offense.

During the last week, a Dodgers lineup that leads the majors in scoring on the season has suddenly scored the second-fewest runs (10 total, and more than two in just one of their last six contests) of the league’s 30 teams. In that time, they are batting a paltry .190 with only four home runs, a whopping 61 strikeouts and an on-base percentage of .269.

The root causes of that malaise are easy to identify: The Dodgers have been without several key regulars (Muncy, Teoscar Hernández and, until Wednesday, Tommy Edman) in their starting lineup. Their three healthy superstars (Shohei Ohtani, Mookie Betts and Freddie Freeman) are hitting a combined .194. Their depth options have offered little reprieve (Michael Conforto, Hyeseong Kim and James Outman have gone five for 38 while receiving increased playing time).

And, they’ve run into two talented pitching staffs, struggling against quality opposing starters such as Framber Valdez, Freddy Peralta and rookie sensation Jacob Misiorowski, and two hard-throwing bullpens from the Astros and Brewers.

Granted, even $400-million payrolls like the Dodgers go through such dips in a season. And while the losses have piled up, the team has maintained the best record in the National League (56-38) and a five-game edge in their division.

“We’ve just got to put some at-bats together, keep playing good defense and it’ll turn,” Roberts promised. “When you’re mired in it, it’s frustrating. But we still have some pretty good players.”

The concern, however, is how quickly the offense has turned in the absence of a few key players.

Freeman and Betts were both slumping in June, but the contributions of Muncy and All-Star catcher Will Smith (the only regular who has also stayed hot during this current losing spell) helped compensate. Ohtani’s numbers at the plate have declined since he returned to pitching, but balance at the bottom of the lineup from younger bats like Kim and Andy Pages made such struggles feel moot.

This week, conversely, has highlighted what can happen when the Dodgers face good pitching at anything less than full strength –– the kind of confluence of events that could quickly derail any postseason campaign if it were to happen again in October.

“You can’t replace All-Stars. You can’t replace guys that have won MVPs in the postseason. You can’t replace those type of things,” Betts said this week. “The next man has to step up and do what he can do. But I mean, you can’t replace those guys. You can only have someone come step up and do their best.”

The good news is, Edman has already returned from a broken pinky toe. Hernández is expected back in the lineup Friday from a foot contusion. And, although Muncy’s knee injury is longer-term, he is expected to return this season.

“It’s one of those things,” Roberts said, “where we’ve got to find a way to weather it.”

Still, the questions this week has raised will loom even if the Dodgers start to heat up again (as they did last year, when they started the second half with a five-game winning streak and 26-13 run overall).

Already, the bullpen was an obvious area of need heading into the trade deadline (especially after Michael Kopech recently underwent a meniscus surgery on his right knee that forced him onto the 60-day IL). The rotation could be, too, although the Dodgers remain confident about having Tyler Glasnow (who returned to action with five solid innings Wednesday) and Blake Snell (who is beginning a minor-league rehab assignment this week) healthy for the second half.

Now, the club will have to decide whether it needs another impact bat as well, potentially adding to a shopping list that has grown much longer than the team had expected after another big offseason of lavish spending.

After all, Freeman and Betts have yet to show signs of life amid career-worst slumps. Ohtani’s workload won’t get any easier as he continues to ramp up on the mound. And there’s no guarantee how Muncy will look once he returns, with Roberts noting his bone bruise will probably linger into next year.

It all leaves the Dodgers in a familiar position: Hopeful its talented, but hardly infallible, roster possesses enough firepower to win another World Series, but knowing that — like last year, when the team acquired Edman, Kopech and starter Jack Flaherty at the deadline — more reinforcements might nonetheless be needed.

“We have to do better,” Rojas said, voicing a recognition that has reverberated throughout the clubhouse of late, as the front office evaluates its options ahead of the July 31 trade deadline. “We gotta find ways to be a complete team that we know we can be.”

MILWAUKEE — The game plan, manager Dave Roberts said Tuesday afternoon, was simple.

As the Dodgers prepared to face Milwaukee Brewers phenom Jacob Misiorowski, a hard-throwing and supremely talented right-hander making just his fifth career MLB start, the club’s manager repeated one key multiple times during his pregame address with reporters:

“Stress him as much as we can.”

Given Misiorowski’s inexperience, the idea was to work long at-bats, drive up his pitch count and “be mindful of [making] quick outs,” Roberts said.

The Brewers’ Jacob Misiorowski shouts during the sixth inning of a game against the Dodgers Tuesday in Milwaukee.

(Aaron Gash / Associated Press)

“If he’s got to keep repeating pitches, there might be a way for some base hits, some walks,” he added. “Again, create stress, and hopefully get a couple big hits.”

A big hit came early, with Shohei Ohtani leading off the game with his 31st home run of the season. But after that, the only stress evident at American Family Field on Tuesday came from the Dodgers’ lineup, which struck out 12 times against Misiorowski during a 3-1 loss to the Brewers. It was the Dodgers’ fifth straight loss.

The Ks came quickly following Ohtani’s early blast (his ninth leadoff home run of the season, and one that set a new Dodgers record for total home runs before the All-Star break).

Mookie Betts fanned on a slider in the next at-bat. Freddie Freeman whiffed on a curveball after him. Andy Pages froze on a 100.8 mph fastball, one of 21 triple-digit pitches Misiorowski uncorked from his wiry 6-foot-7, 197-pound frame.

Misiorowski struck out three more batters in the second to strand a two-out Dalton Rushing single. He worked around Miguel Rojas’ leadoff double in the third with two more punchouts, getting Ohtani with a curveball this time and Freeman with the same pitch after a generous strike call got the count full.

From there, the Dodgers didn’t stress Misorowski again until the sixth, when Ohtani drew a leadoff walk and Betts slapped a single through the infield. With one out, however, Ohtani was thrown at the plate trying to score from third on Pages’ chopper up the line. Then Michael Conforto grounded out to first to retire the side, sending Misorowski skipping back to the dugout with a few thumps of his chest at the end of a six-inning, one-run start that saw all 12 strikeouts come the first five frames (tying the most strikeouts by any MLB pitcher in the first five innings of a game since 2008).

Opposite Misiorowski, Dodgers veteran Clayton Kershaw produced a solid six-inning, two-run start in a vastly different way. With his fastball still topping out at 90 mph, and the 37-year-old managing only three strikeouts in his first start since joining the 3,000 club last week, Kershaw instead navigated the Brewers with a string of soft contact.

The only problem: The Brewers still found a way to build a rally in the bottom of the fourth.

After singling on a swinging bunt up the third-base line his first time up, Milwaukee catcher William Contreras did the same thing to lead off the inning. Then Jackson Chourio beat the shift on a ground ball the other way.

That set up Andrew Vaughn for a line-drive RBI single to center, tying the score. In the next at-bat, Isaac Collins also found a hole in the infield, sneaking another ground-ball single between Betts and Rojas on the left side of the infield to give Milwaukee a 2-1 lead.

Even after Misiorowski departed, a shorthanded Dodgers lineup (which was once again without injured veterans Teoscar Hernández and Tommy Edman, as well as primary catcher Will Smith on a scheduled off day) couldn’t claw its way back.

The Brewers’ bullpen retired all nine batters it faced. Sal Frelick took Kirby Yates deep for an insurance run in the eighth. And on a day the Dodgers intended to create stress, they were instead dealing with the headache of a season-long five-game losing streak.

MILWAUKEE — Yoshinobu Yamamoto was one pitch away from a clean first inning Monday night.

Instead, it devolved into a sudden, unstoppable nightmare.

In the shortest start of his MLB career, and in an outing that somehow rivaled his disastrous debut in the majors last March in South Korea, Yamamoto missed one chance after the next to escape the bottom of the first against the Milwaukee Brewers at American Family Field. Poor defense and bad batted-ball luck didn’t help in what became a 41-pitch collapse.

By the time it was all over, the Brewers were leading by five runs, manager Dave Roberts was summoning a reliever just two outs into the game, and the Dodgers were well on their way to a fourth consecutive defeat, never coming close to a comeback in a 9-1 loss to open a six-game road trip.

The trouble started quickly beneath an open retractable roof on a mild summer night in Wisconsin.

Sal Frelick hammered a hanging curveball for a leadoff double. Willson Contreras drew a walk when Yamamoto couldn’t locate his splitter near the zone. And the two outs that followed — a fly ball from Jackson Chourio and grounder from Christian Yelich — proved to be only a temporary reprieve.

In the next at-bat, newly acquired Brewers slugger Andrew Vaughn came to the plate in his first game with the team. He got three straight sliders from Yamamoto to start, fanning on the first before laying off two that missed the zone next. Then, after a called strike on a fastball at the knees evened the count 2-and-2, catcher Will Smith dialed up another curveball from Yamamoto again.

It was supposed to be down and on the outside corner. Instead, it fluttered up and above the zone. Vaughn connected with a mighty upper-cut swing. The ball soared beyond the left-field wall, making it 3-0 Brewers just like that.

Somehow, the inning would only get worse from there.

Despite entering the night coming off a first-career All-Star selection, and leading the majors in road ERA at 1.57, Yamamoto failed to settle down.

In a 1-and-2 count against Isaac Collins, he left a fastball down the middle that was hammered for a single. After falling behind 3-and-0 to Brice Turang, Yamamoto worked the count full only to miss badly with a fastball and issue an inning-extending walk.

With his pitch count climbing at that point, Roberts began to stir the bullpen.

Yamamoto appeared to finally find an escape route against Caleb Durbin, inducing a grounder with a splitter that was hit straight to shortstop Mookie Betts. But, in a rare defensive lapse at his new position, Betts spiked a throw to first that Freddie Freeman couldn’t corral. Collins came racing around from second to score. The inning stayed alive when it once again should’ve ended.

Yamamoto’s leash finally ran out on pitch 41, when Andruw Monasterio lobbed a bloop RBI single down the right-field line in the next at-bat. As another run scored, Roberts came walking out of the bullpen to give the team’s season-long ace an unimaginably early hook.

The two teams played the final eight innings. But the result already seemed well in hand.

The Dodgers’ lineup was shorthanded, missing Teoscar Hernández with a bruised foot and Tommy Edman with a pinky toe fracture (both are expected back in the lineup by Wednesday). Before the game, Kiké Hernández was also put on the injured list with an elbow injury that had been bothering him since he made an awkward slide in Cleveland in late May, and flared up to the point of requiring a cortisone shot this past weekend. Not to be forgotten, Max Muncy also remains sidelined by his bum knee.

In their places, the Dodgers started James Outman in center field (who was called up from triple A pregame), Miguel Rojas at third base and Hyeseong Kim at second against Brewers All-Star right-hander Freddy Peralta.

The outcome was predictable: Six innings of shutout ball in which the Dodgers managed only five hits, one walk and struck out seven times.

The Dodgers are counting on Max Muncy to be ready to produce in October.

As they should.

Muncy is expected to be sidelined for six weeks with a bone bruise in his left knee but that won’t push them into the market for another third baseman between now and the July 31 trade deadline.

“I don’t think that changes much, knowing the certainty of Max coming back at some point,” manager Dave Roberts said.

The faith in Muncy is justified by his track record, the former All-Star missing three months last year but setting an all-time playoff record by reaching base in 12 consecutive plate appearances on the team’s World Series run.

This doesn’t mean the Dodgers shouldn’t be looking to strike a major deal over the next three-plus weeks.

They still have to address their greatest obstacle to become their sport’s repeat champions in 25 years. They still have to address their starting pitching.

Every sign points to the Dodgers taking a passive approach in dealing with the issue, as they continue to point to the anticipated returns of Tyler Glasnow and Blake Snell.

Glasnow pitched 4 ⅓ innings for triple-A Oklahoma City on Thursday and Roberts said he expected the 6-foot-8 right-hander to rejoin the rotation on the Dodgers’ upcoming trip to Milwaukee and San Francisco.

Dodgers pitcher Tyler Glasnow throws in the outfield before a game against the New York Mets at Dodger Stadium on June 4.

(Gina Ferazzi/Los Angeles Times)

Snell pitched to hitters in live batting practice on Wednesday and is scheduled to do so again on Saturday. The left-hander could be on a minor-league rehabilitation assignment by next week.

Glasnow and Snell are former All-Stars, but how much can the Dodgers rely on them?

Unironically nicknamed “Glass,” Glasnow hasn’t pitched since April. The $136.5-million man has never pitched more than the 134 innings he pitched last year, and even then, he wasn’t unavailable for the playoffs.

Snell made just 20 starts last year with the San Francisco Giants but was signed by the Dodgers to a five-year, $182-million contract over the winter. He made only two starts for them before he was placed on the injured list with shoulder inflammation.

Dodgers pitcher Blake Snell throws the ball against the Atlanta Braves at Dodger Stadium on April 2.

(Robert Gauthier/Los Angeles Times)

Ideally, the Dodgers’ postseason rotation would consist of Yoshinobu Yamamoto, Snell, Glasnow and Shohei Ohtani. There’s no guarantee that will materialize, considering that Yamamoto and Ohtani have their own complicated medical histories.

Yamamoto pitched heroically in the playoffs last year but only after missing three months in the regular season. Ohtani returned from his second elbow reconstruction last month but has been used as an opener so far. Ohtani is expected to pitch two innings on Saturday against the Houston Astros, and the team doesn’t envision using him for more than four or five innings at a time in the playoffs.

Every pitcher is an injury risk, and the Dodgers know that. But just because they won the World Series last year with three starting pitchers — they resorted to bullpen games when Yamamoto, Jack Flaherty and Walker Buehler couldn’t pitch — doesn’t mean they can lean as heavily on their relievers and expect the same results. The approach has resulted in more postseason disappointments than championships, so much so that when Ohtani was being recruited by the Dodgers before last season, Mark Walter told him he considered his previous 12 years of ownership to be a failure.

Ohtani will celebrate his 31st birthday on Saturday. He might not be showing his age yet, but Freddie Freeman and Mookie Betts have. Freeman will be 36 in September and Betts 33 in October. The window in which the Dodgers have three MVP-caliber players in the lineup is closing, which should inspire a sense of urgency.

The front office’s reluctance to shop in a seller’s market is understandable, considering the most attractive possibilities are by no means sure things. Chris Sale of the Atlanta Braves is on the 60-day injured list with a fractured rib. Sandy Alcantara of the Miami Marlins has been up and down in his return from Tommy John surgery. Then again, the Dodgers made a smart buy in Flaherty last year and the gamble resulted in a World Series.

At this point, it’s up to Glasnow and Snell to perform well enough to convince the Dodgers they don’t need any more pitching. Until Glasnow and Snell do that, the team should operate as if it has to do something.

With a 6-1 annihilation of the downtrodden Chicago White Sox on Tuesday night, the Dodgers extended their advantage in the National League West to eight games.

Eight games, despite slumps by Mookie Betts and Freddie Freeman.

Eight games, despite injuries to Tyler Glasnow and Blake Snell.

Eight games, despite being less than three weeks removed from sharing the division lead with the San Francisco Giants.

Almost everything that could go wrong this season for the Dodgers has gone wrong, and they are ahead of the second-place San Diego Padres by eight games and the third-place Giants by nine. The Dodgers have looked nothing like the 120-win juggernaut they were expected to be, and they have the best record in the major leagues.

“I still believe our best baseball is ahead of us,” manager Dave Roberts said.

Three months remain in the regular season, more than enough time for the Dodgers to become whole, more than enough time for them to transform into baseball’s version of the Mongol army.

Roberts said the Dodgers are “not really playing our best baseball,” and he’s right. They haven’t steamrolled their opponents as much as they have outgutted them.

“We haven’t been at full strength all year,” Roberts said. “A lot of teams can say the same thing. But to our credit, no one has made any excuses about that.”

The Dodgers and Giants were even in the standings on June 13. The Dodgers won 13 of their next 16 games. The Giants lost 12 of their next 16, their blockbuster trade for Rafael Devers shaking up the division but not in the way they wanted.

From mid-May to mid-June, the Dodgers played 26 consecutive games against teams with winning records, but the Giants and Padres failed to take advantage of that. Roberts’ team emerged from that stretch in first place and has continued to increase its division lead since.

What should be disconcerting for the Giants and Padres — as well as the New York Yankees and Mets, and any other aspiring contender — is that the Dodgers have managed to distance themselves from the competition without looking particularly imposing.

Their win over the White Sox on Tuesday night marked the rare game in which they dominated every aspect of the game, with Yoshinobu Yamamoto giving up just one run in seven innings, the offense scoring four runs in the first inning, Shohei Ohtani launching his 30th homer in the fourth, and Jack Dreyer and Anthony Banda each pitching a scoreless inning in relief.

They need more games like this but not just to win the division or secure a first-round bye in the playoffs. They need them to create the momentum required to make another championship run.

“One thing I’ve learned,” Roberts said, “is the most important thing is once you’re [in the playoffs], you’ve got to be playing your best baseball because anything can happen.”

Ohtani has resumed pitching, albeit in a limited capacity. As much talk as there was about how his mound return affected his hitting, Ohtani still homered seven times last month.

The Dodgers aren’t counting on Ohtani to make seven- or eight-inning starts in the postseason, but they think he could contribute four or five innings at a time without compromising his offensive production.

Betts was kept out of the lineup on Tuesday, Roberts categorizing the day off as “more of a mental day.” Betts hasn’t found much of an offensive rhythm this season, but his track record indicates he is bound to break out of his slump.

“He’s an easy guy to bet on,” Roberts said of the eight-time All-Star.

The same could be said of Freeman.

The Dodgers also received uplifting news on the injury front.

Roki Sasaki played catch on Tuesday and was clocked at 91 mph, a sign that his season might not be over.

Snell and reliever Blake Treinen will pitch live batting practice sessions on Wednesday, marking their first time facing hitters since landing on the injured list. A day later, Glasnow is scheduled to make what could be his final start of a minor league rehabilitation assignment, with the Dodgers hopeful he can throw about 75 pitches over five innings. If management continues to have doubts whether Snell or Glasnow will be available in October, it can always make a move before the July 31 trade deadline.

As the team with the best record in baseball, the Dodgers technically have nowhere to go but down. In reality, they can only improve from here. This is their floor. By the time the playoffs come around, they should be a better team than they are now.

DENVER — As the Dodgers completed a sweep of the Colorado Rockies on Thursday, it was two of their cornerstone hitters who helped lead the way.

In what was then a tie game in the top of the sixth inning, Mookie Betts led off with a double in the gap, Freddie Freeman brought him home with a line drive to right, and the Dodgers took a lead they wouldn’t relinquish, completing a three-game sweep that kept them tied for the best record in baseball.

For much of the last four years, that would’ve been an unremarkable sequence. Shohei Ohtani might be the most potent hitter in the Dodgers’ lineup, but Betts and Freeman have long been the bedrock of their offense; All-Stars in each season they’ve played in Los Angeles, and MVP candidates more often than not.

On Thursday, however, their sixth-inning heroics had a different feel. Because, for the last three weeks, both superstars have been mired in startlingly stark slumps.

Over Betts’ last 17 games, the former MVP is batting .191 with only one home run and eight RBIs — dropping his season-long production to just a shade above league average (he has a 106 OPS+, an all-encompassing stat in which 100 is considered league average).

Freeman’s last 20 games have been even worse, highlighted by a .160 average that marks the lowest of any single-season, 20-game stretch in his entire career — diminishing the stellar numbers he had this year beforehand.

Such coinciding struggles haven’t triggered any “long-term concerns,” manager Dave Roberts said this week. Thursday’s game provided some long-awaited production, a sigh of relief for two veteran sluggers who don’t often need one.

But still, the numbers are the numbers. A trip to even hitter-friendly Coors Field failed to fully bring them back to life. And until they rebound, external questions about their bats will linger, while their personal search for answers will carry on.

“I’ve been frustrated for about six weeks now,” Freeman said recently.

“If I knew [what was wrong],” Betts echoed this week, “I promise you I wouldn’t keep doing it.”

The Dodgers’ Mookie Betts remains adamant that playing shortstop is not the reason his numbers are down at the plate this season.

(Luke Johnson / Los Angeles Times)

It wasn’t long ago that both Betts and Freeman were on polar opposite trajectories, surging through most of May and early June on offensive heaters that evaporated their slow (and physically hampered) starts to the campaign.

On April 28, Betts was hitting only .230 with an OPS nearly below .700, clearly affected by a stomach virus that drained him over the two weeks leading up to opening day.

Then, in a 32-game stretch from April 29-June 7, his typical levels of production suddenly reappeared. He hit .312 with four doubles, four home runs and an .835 OPS. And he did it all while showing defensive mastery of shortstop, quieting a growing narrative that the toll of his new position was curbing his capabilities at the plate.

“It’s not about shortstop,” Betts said last month. “Because remember, last year, I was playing pretty well [offensively while] playing at shortstop. I had no idea what I was doing. Now, I’m way more confident in how I show up and prepare each and every day. The shortstop argument can’t be it.”

Given his recent skid, however, such speculation is back.

“I’m gonna hold to no,” Roberts said when asked about the dynamic again this week. “I think it’s a fair debate. But all I can go with is what Mookie is saying, as far as the separation of the hitting to the defense, the comfort level with the defense … So I don’t think there’s a correlation.”

Instead, Roberts pointed to a lack of power as a bigger factor. Betts’ .392 slugging percentage thus far is 50 points worse than his previous career-low (which came in his rookie 2014 season). He ranks below league-average in underlying metrics such as exit velocity, hard-hit percentage and bat speed most of all (slipping to the 11th percentile among MLB hitters in that category).

“I think it’s the lack of hitting the ball on the barrel,” Roberts said. “He’s a guy that knows how to find the barrel. But there’s times that he’s chasing a little bit more than he usually does. And then there’s a lot more pop-ups than typical. So to get power, you gotta find the barrel. That’s what we’re trying to do.”

Freeman has endured even more whiplash amid his rollercoaster season.

At the end of May, he was leading the National League with a .374 batting average. He was seemingly compensating for whatever lingering pain remained in the right ankle he had surgically repaired in the offseason, then re-aggravated with a slip in the shower at the end of March.

Even at age 35, he appeared primed for a potential career season, well on track for an elusive first batting title.

“He’s just been relentless,” Roberts said last month.

Now, however, one of the game’s best hit collectors can’t seem to buy a knock most days. His batting average has fallen all the way to .309 entering Friday. Before his Thursday afternoon single, he was 0-for-11 in the Rockies series and one-for-his-last-22 overall.

“I have seen some signs where he’s hit some balls hard and hasn’t gotten anything to show for it,” Roberts said, searching for positives amid Freeman’s highly uncharacteristic slump. “That’s discouraging for him. But I just know he’s gonna find his way out of it.”

To this point, though, he hasn’t, with his usual routine of slump-busting drills — from a net exercise designed to promote an inside-out bat path, to mental cues intended to help him stay back in his swing — having yet to get his mechanics re-aligned.

“I’ve gone through every cue 16 times over again in the last six weeks,” he said. “So just waiting for it to click.”

Though Freeman, who also battled a minor quadriceps injury in recent weeks, still looks hobbled while running the bases and playing defense at times, he insisted the problems aren’t injury-related.

“The only pain is the swing,” he said.

And despite his best efforts to conceal such frustrations during games, Roberts has noticed the toll his slump has started to take.

“I think he just wants consistency from his swing,” Roberts said. “Wants to feel right consistently.”

Somewhat amazingly, the Dodgers haven’t missed a beat even with their superstar pairing clearly out of tune. The team is 13-4 in its last 17 games. The offense has scored six runs per game in that span, half-a-run better than its already MLB-leading season average. Other middle-of-the-order bats — from current NL batting leader Will Smith, to June player of the month candidate Max Muncy and rising second-year star Andy Pages — have helped pick up the slack.

Ohtani, meanwhile, leads the National League with 28 home runs even while returning to two-way duties.

But in the long run, much of the Dodgers’ success still figures to run through Betts and Freeman. They are still the two most veteran, experienced producers in a lineup full of All-Star caliber talent.

At the very least, Roberts insisted, Thursday offered “something to build on.”

But with the way the last month has gone for each, there remains a lot of work left to do.

It’s hard not to count as the strikeouts go by.

Clayton Kershaw’s first strikeout Friday night came on his “Cooperstown curveball” — a pitch that’s dazzled since its first appearance at Dodger Stadium on May 25, 2008. Two strikeouts on sliders that dove into the dirt like paper airplanes curtailing in the wind brought his chase to single digits.

The milestone is inevitable. Kershaw will all but certainly reach the 3,000-strikeout mark, etching his name on a list that features just 19 other pitchers. But he’ll have to wait a little while longer.

“There’s a few pitches tonight where it clicked,” Kershaw said, moving his earned-run average to 2.49 in June. “It’s just not every one. So hopefully it’ll get there.”

Kershaw struck out four batters against the Nationals, tossing five innings and giving up two solo home runs as the Dodgers took the series opener 6-5.

“It’s really special knowing that he’s approaching 3,000,” said infielder Miguel Rojas, who played third base Friday like he did for Kershaw’s no-hitter in 2014. “Every pitch… every strikeout counts. But for him, I feel like it’s more important to win games, and for him to be 3-0 and with really good numbers overall, I’m happy for him — that he’s healthy, happy and able to contribute.”

Kershaw brought his career strikeout total to 2,992, just eight away from 3,000. Strikeout 3,000 could come Thursday in Colorado or Friday in Kansas City when he’s next expected to toe the mound.

“It’s hard not to appreciate how close he is to the 3,000 mark,” Dodgers manager Dave Roberts said. “My guess is that he just wants to get this thing over with as soon as possible, right? … He wants it over as quick as possible, I’m sure.”

Kershaw still doesn’t feel his sharpest in his seventh start of the season. He walked two and 33 of his 78 pitches were balls. His fastball was more than a tick down from his season average as he flailed with his command early.

And yet, Kershaw battled through five innings.

“I can still get people out,” Kershaw said. “I just want to do it a little bit better.”

Clayton Kershaw delivers in the third inning against the Washington Nationals on Friday night.

(Gina Ferazzi / Los Angeles Times)

If the Dodgers’ previous four-game series against the Padres had the energy and animosity of postseason baseball, then the Nationals coming to town felt like a true mid-June game. Coming off an 11-game losing streak — broken Thursday in Colorado — the Nationals (31-45) fell out of an early lead because of self-inflicted gaffes.

After the Dodgers knotted the score 1-1 when bench coach Danny Lehmann’s first successful challenge (stepping in at manager for the suspended Roberts) brought home a run after Mookie Betts was deemed safe at first on a fielder’s choice, Nationals shortstop CJ Abrams made what looked to be an inning-ending force play.

Abrams dove to his right on an infield single from Andy Pages, stabbed the ball and used his glove to flip to Amed Rosario at second base. The ball never reached Rosario, and Betts hustled home from second base without a throw.

Rojas extended the Dodgers’ lead to 6-2 in the bottom of the sixth when he hit his third home run of the season, a two-run shot, to score Kiké Hernández (two for three, two doubles). When the Nationals threatened in the top of the seventh — with runners on second and third, down by two — Michael Conforto came to the Dodgers’ rescue by making a diving catch to keep his team ahead.

“It’s a long season, and you’re going to receive more opportunities to contribute, and it’s nice to finally get one game like this where you feel part of it,” Rojas said, adding that he was glad to showcase his hitting against a left-hander such as Washington ace MacKenzie Gore.

Abrams homered in the ninth, but Dodgers closer Tanner Scott buckled down to secure his 15th save.

The Dodgers (47-30) will turn to right-hander Dustin May against the Nationals on Saturday as they attempt to clinch their fourth consecutive series. Neither Roberts nor Lehmann was made available to reporters after the game.

Miguel Rojas, left, is gets a hand slap from Dodgers first base coach Chris Woodward after hitting a two-run home run in the sixth inning against the Nationals on Friday night at Dodger Stadium.

(Gina Ferazzi / Los Angeles Times)

Etc.

Right-hander Tyler Glasnow (shoulder inflammation) is set to throw two innings in a rehabilitation assignment with triple-A Oklahoma City on Sunday, while left-hander Blake Snell (shoulder inflammation) is set to throw a bullpen in the next few days, Roberts said.

Roki Sasaki (right shoulder impingement), who stopped throwing after a recent flare up stymied his progression, threw in the outfield Friday afternoon.

“I don’t know if it was 60, 90 feet, with the baseball,” Roberts said of Sasaki, who was moved to the 60-day injured list Friday. “That was a bonus. That was a plus. Chatted with him briefly afterward. He was excited about it.”

On how Sasaki was feeling, Roberts said: “I would say pain-free. Now it’s just getting the build-up. But most important, he’s pain-free.”

SAN DIEGO — Major League Baseball does not have a mercy rule for ending games early.

On Tuesday night at Petco Park, the Dodgers could have used one.

In recent years, the club has punted on plenty of games in the interest of protecting their often injury-riddled and shorthanded pitching staffs. But in an 11-1 loss to the San Diego Padres, they took the act of de facto forfeiture to levels even they hadn’t previously pioneered.

First, they let minor league call-up Matt Sauer wear it — in every sense of the phrase — over a nine-run, 13-hit, 111-pitch outing.

Then, in the face of a nine-run deficit in the bottom of the sixth, they sent position player Kiké Hernández to the mound to pitch the rest of the game, the earliest a true position player had ever taken the mound in a contest in Dodgers franchise history.

“Very awkward,” manager Dave Roberts said. “It doesn’t feel good.”

The Dodgers’ decision to pack, even before the seventh-inning stretch, it in was rooted in logic.

They are currently operating with only four healthy starting pitchers. Their equally banged-up bullpen is leading the majors in innings, and was coming off five frames of work in an extra-inning win the night before. And by the time Hernández took the mound in the sixth, the game had long been lost, the Padres (38-28) teeing off on Sauer with three runs two-out runs in the third inning, single scores in the fourth and fifth, and a four-spot in the sixth.

“I know that my job is just eat as many as I can,” said Sauer, who entered the game as a bulk man in the second inning after opener Lou Trivino tossed a scoreless first. “Obviously, today, didn’t have as good of stuff, but I felt like I was just out there pitching my ass off, trying to compete and trying to eat as many innings as I could for the bullpen.”

On the other side, Padres ace Dylan Cease mowed down the Dodgers, giving up three hits while striking out 11 batters over seven scoreless innings.

“We had a couple chances early,” Roberts said. “But I think when the game got away, you could just see things flip.”

Thus, the Dodgers (40-28) quickly turned their attention to Wednesday’s series rubber-match, one they will have to win to maintain sole possession of first place in the National League West.

Shohei Ohtani, Mookie Betts and Teoscar Hernández were removed from the game after the top of the sixth.

And knowing Wednesday’s starter will be left-hander Justin Wrobleski, who has a 7.20 ERA in three big-league outings this year and has spent much of the campaign in triple-A, Roberts decided not to waste any of his other available relievers on the latter innings either, inserting Hernández as pitcher the moment the Padres pushed their lead past eight runs with two out in the bottom of the frame (MLB rules prevent losing teams from using position players on the mound until they face an eight-run deficit).

“You just got to look at where our ‘pen is at, and appreciating what we have the next couple days, it wasn’t smart to chase and redline guys,” Roberts said. “A guy that was available tonight, [Michael] Kopech, I’m not going to pitch him down six or 7-0 in the sixth inning, to then not have him available tomorrow. As the rules are, we abided. That’s kind of what you do to essentially move forward and win the ensuing games.”

Still, a position player taking the mound in the sixth inning to finish off a blowout loss represented an almost unprecedented use of the tactic; one that has become so popular among MLB clubs in recent years that the league had to put in the eight-run restriction for when teams can do it.

Two years ago, the Cleveland Guardians had David Fry pitch four innings at the end of a rout against the Minnesota Twins, the first time a true position player had pitched at least three innings in a game since 1988, according to USA Today.

In 2018, the Arizona Diamondbacks used two position players for the final 4 ⅔ innings of a lopsided defeat at Coors Field to the Colorado Rockies.

Hernández’s 2 ⅓ innings (in which he gave up two runs, three hits and two walks) marked the longest pitching outing by a true position player in Dodgers history.

“Again, it’s about do you want to chase? And is it worth it versus [trying] to win tomorrow?” Roberts said. “I think those are things are part of the math … The goal was to come in here to win a series, and we got a really good chance to do that tomorrow.”

Given how Tuesday went, they better hope so. Because if not, their 10-run loss will be an embarrassment without much of a reward.

The Dodgers’ lineup should be back at full strength soon.

When they’ll be able to say the same about their pitching staff is anyone’s guess.

First, the good news for the team: After fracturing the fourth toe on his left foot (the one closest to the pinky toe) last week and missing all three games against the New York Yankees, shortstop Mookie Betts went through a full slate of pregame hitting, baserunning and defensive drills on Monday and seemed probable to be available off the bench for the Dodgers in their series-opener against the New York Mets.

Assuming he continues to feel good, Betts should also return to the starting lineup on Tuesday, manager Dave Roberts said.

“That’s all contingent on if he recovers well tonight,” Roberts said.

Based on Betts’ activity level Monday, he certainly appeared to be ready to return. As one of the first Dodgers players on the field before the game, he spent several minutes running the bases, then went through a full session of infield grounders at shortstop. Betts also took batting practice, a day after Roberts said his swing in the batting cage “wasn’t compromised at all” by the freak injury.

“For me, I just want to make sure I move to make plays for those guys,” Betts said Sunday. “Hitting, hopefully that comes along. I just want to make sure I can play defense.”

As for the less encouraging update: A week after throwing his first bullpen session since going on the injured list in April with shoulder inflammation, Tyler Glasnow has been feeling general body discomfort, Roberts said.

Dodgers pitcher Tyler Glasnow delivers against the Phillies on April 6, 2025 in Philadelphia.

(Derik Hamilton / Associated Press)

Glasnow has continued to play catch, including on Monday afternoon in the outfield of Dodger Stadium. But Roberts said he is “not sure when he’s gonna get back on a mound.”

“There was one ‘pen, and then [his] body didn’t respond,” Roberts said. “So we’re trying to figure out when we can ramp him back up.”

Given Glasnow’s extensive injury history, such a setback qualifies as only mildly surprising. The 31-year-old has never made more than 22 starts or pitched over 134 innings in a major league season. And while he set both of those high-marks in his first season with the Dodgers last year — arriving in Los Angeles via a trade from Tampa Bay two winters ago and an ensuing five-year, $136.5-million extension — he never returned from an elbow tendonitis injury he suffered in August, despite repeated attempts to comeback in time for the playoffs.

“I know he’s just as frustrated as we all are [that] the process since we’ve had him, it just hasn’t been linear, as far as getting him back,” Roberts said. “He’s champing at the bit, so that’s a good thing. He’s very anxious to get back out here and help his team.”

Of the Dodgers’ injured quartet of star pitchers — which also includes Blake Snell, Roki Sasaki and Shohei Ohtani — Glasnow was initially expected to return first.

Now, however, he and Snell might be on more similar timelines. Snell made notable progress in his throwing progression this week and could begin throwing bullpens early next week.

“He’s in a really good spot physically and mentally,” Roberts said of Snell.

Sasaki has also been throwing lately, though Roberts noted it has been low-intensity. Ohtani, meanwhile, threw his second live batting practice over the weekend, and remains on track to return sometime after the All-Star break.

In the bullpen, the Dodgers should get a couple of reinforcements in the coming days.

Hard-throwing right-hander Michael Kopech (out since the start of the season with a shoulder injury) will be in Los Angeles this week after completing a minor-league rehab assignment, though exactly when he will be activated remains to be seen. Kopech yielded 11 runs and 11 walks in 6 ⅓ innings with triple-A Oklahoma City, and Roberts said the club wants to “evaluate, see how he is” up close before having him make his MLB season debut.

Another veteran right-hander, Kirby Yates, threw his second bullpen session on Monday since suffering a hamstring strain last month. He will next throw a live batting practice on Wednesday, and could be activated as soon as next weekend.

Dave Roberts downplayed the easy narrative on Sunday afternoon.

“No,” he said when asked if his Dodgers had the New York Yankees’ proverbial number, having followed up their defeat of the Bronx Bombers in last year’s World Series with two impressive wins to start this weekend’s rematch at Dodger Stadium.

“I think we’ve had their number the last two nights,” Roberts said, “but today’s a different day.”

Was it ever.

Twenty-four hours after a total annihilation of the Yankees in a 16-run rout on Saturday, the Dodgers suffered the kind of setback that has so often plagued them this season, squandering the chance to build further momentum in a 7-3 loss that prevented a series sweep.

For as complete a performance as the Dodgers (36-23) put together Saturday, they looked equally out of sorts in a “Sunday Night Baseball” finale, getting a rare bad start from Yoshinobu Yamamoto, mistakes on defense and basepaths that cost them early runs, and virtually nothing from a lineup that looked largely discombobulated against funky left-hander (and former Dodgers swingman) Ryan Yarbrough.

They might have come out of the weekend with a marquee series win, continuing to nurse a narrow lead in the National League West standings.

But, they invited more scrutiny over their inconsistent start to the season with a finale flop, dropping to 13-13 over their last 26 games.

“You got to focus on the positives,” third baseman Max Muncy said. “We just took two of three from a really, really good team. We’re obviously upset that we didn’t get this one. But we played two really good games. … Just [today] the result wasn’t there.”

Yamamoto had been the one constant in the Dodgers’ injury-plagued rotation. His 1.97 earned-run average was second in the NL. His 64 innings not only led the team, but were almost twice as many as anyone else besides Dustin May.

Dodgers pitcher Yoshinobu Yamamoto shouts in frustration after giving up a home run to New York’s Ben Rice in the third inning.

(Robert Gauthier / Los Angeles Times)

Yamamoto also had an impressive personal track record against the Yankees (36-22), shutting them out over seven innings in New York last June before delivering 6 ⅓ innings of one-run ball in Game 2 of the World Series.

On Sunday, however, he couldn’t consistently find the strike zone or execute his trademark splitter. And after scoring just two runs in their previous 15 innings in this series, the Yankees finally came to life at the plate.

“I was not being able to control my pitches,” Yamamoto said through interpreter Yoshihiro Sonoda. “During the game, I was trying to make an adjustment, but … I could not get it back, my stuff.”

In the first, Trent Grisham singled and Ben Rice walked before Jasson Domínguez dumped a line drive into left, driving in a run when Andy Pages airmailed his throw to home plate.

In the third, a leadoff walk to Judge was followed by a two-run homer to Rice — Yamamoto missing badly with two splitters in the first at-bat before leaving one hanging in the next.

Later in the inning, the Yankees scored again after Yamamoto gave up two singles and spiked a splitter for a run-scoring wild pitch.

Dodgers star Shohei Ohtani strikes out against the Yankees in the first inning Sunday.

(Robert Gauthier / Los Angeles Times)

And with two outs in the fourth, Roberts pulled Yamamoto, his pitch count having ballooned to 96 on a day he gave up a season-high in hits (seven) and walked three others. It was the first time this year that Yamamoto, whose ERA rose to 2.39, had failed to complete the fifth.

“He wasn’t great today, wasn’t sharp with any of his pitches,” Roberts said. “Really uncharacteristic.”

The Dodgers faltered in other ways, as well.

After his first-inning throwing error, Pages made a mistake on the bases in the second. Following a one-out double, he was thrown out on an over-aggressive steal of third. That meant that when Tommy Edman homered moments later — his first long ball in 17 games, breaking him out of a recent funk at the plate — it was only a solo blast, temporarily tying the score before the Yankees answered in the next half-inning.

There would be no counterpunch from Dodgers’ offense, which was missing Mookie Betts for a third-straight game because of a toe fracture (Betts said before the game his toe was starting to feel better, and went through pregame activities in hopes of avoiding a stint on the injured list).

Instead, Yarbrough cruised against the team that dealt him away at last year’s trade deadline.

Even though he never hit 90 mph with his fastball, he induced a string of soft contact while striking out five in a six-inning start. Yarbrough was especially effective against the top of the Dodgers’ order, which went a combined 0 for 16.

“It’s funky,” catcher Will Smith, who was batting cleanup, said of Yarbrough’s unorthodox delivery. “We gave them a little momentum. They jumped on us early [with] some long innings. So he did a good job attacking us and keeping us off balance.”

The Dodgers did show some life after Yarbrough’s exit, with Pages and Muncy each taking reliever Jonathan Loáisiga deep within the space of three at-bats.

But by then, it was much too little, much too late — resulting in the Dodgers’ second straight series in which they failed to complete a sweep, and yet another momentum-halting loss in a season plagued by a few too many of them.

“I think for us, the takeaway is we won a series and that was the goal coming in,” Roberts said. “I think at the end of the day, you keep winning series and things will take care of themselves.”

Dodgers shortstop Mookie Betts will not start in any of this weekend’s games against the New York Yankees after sustaining a fractured toe this week, but the team is hopeful he will be able to avoid a stint on the injured list.

Betts told the Times on Friday night that he fractured his toe at home this week, after the Dodgers returned from a road trip on Wednesday night.

“I was just going to the bathroom in the dark and hit my toe on a wall,” he said.

The Dodgers were originally still planning to have Betts in the lineup Friday for their series opener against the New York Yankees, but he was ultimately scratched after his toe continued to give him problems before the game.

“Putting on a shoe today was difficult for him,” manager Dave Roberts said.

Despite the diagnosis, Roberts and Betts said they were confident the former MVP wouldn’t be out more than a few days.

“I know it’s at the tip of his toe, so it’s going to be one of those situations [that is] per his [pain] tolerance,” Roberts said. “I don’t expect an IL. We’ll probably have him down for the series and hopefully he’ll be available to hit in a big spot. And then we’ll kind of see. But I think for me right now it’s just day to day.”

“It’s just pain,” Betts added. “Get the swelling out, it’ll be all right.”

Betts had started in each of the Dodgers’ past 20 games, and appeared in each of their last 51 overall, having not missed any time since recovering from a two-week stomach virus at the start of the season.

While his defense had been much-improved during his second season as the club’s everyday shortstop, the 32-year-old was struggling at the plate, batting just .254 on the season with eight home runs, 31 RBIs and a .742 OPS.

In Betts’ absence on Friday, veteran Miguel Rojas took over at shortstop. Tommy Edman and Hyeseong Kim are also options to fill in for Betts at shortstop over the rest of the weekend.

“I’m gonna be all right,” Betts said. “It is what it is.”

Before the start of the season, Dodgers first base and infield coach Chris Woodward pulled Mookie Betts aside one day, and had him envision the ultimate end result.

“You’re gonna be standing at shortstop when we win the World Series,” Woodward told Betts, the former Gold Glove right fielder in the midst of an almost unprecedented mid-career position switch. “That’s what the goal is.”

Two months into the season, the Dodgers believe he’s checking the requisite boxes on the path toward getting there.

“I would say, right now he’s playing above-average shortstop, Major League shortstop,” manager Dave Roberts said this week. “Which is amazing, considering he just took this position up.”

Betts has not only returned to shortstop this season after his unconvincing three-month stint at the position last year; but he has progressed so much that, unlike when he was moved back to right field for the stretch run of last fall’s championship march, the Dodgers have no plans for a similar late-season switch this time around.

“I don’t see us making a change [like] we did last year. I don’t see that happening,” Roberts said. “He’s a major league shortstop, on a championship club.”

“And,” the manager also added, “he’s only getting better.”

It means that now, Betts’ challenge has gone from proving he belongs at shortstop to proving he can master it by the end of the season. The goal Woodward laid out at the beginning of the year has suddenly become much more realistic now. And over the next four months, Betts’ ability to polish his shortstop play looms as one of the Dodgers’ biggest X-factors.

“Getting to that, even when he’s as good as he is now, there’s still a lot to learn,” Woodward said. “He’s done good up to this point. So how do we maintain that [progress]?”

In Year 1 of playing shortstop on a full-time basis last season, Betts’ initial experience was marked by trial and (mostly) error. He struggled to make accurate throws across the diamond. He lacked the instincts and confidence to cleanly field even many routine grounders. In his three-month cameo in the role — one cut short by a midseason broken hand — he committed nine errors and ranked below-league-average in several advanced metrics.

“Last year,” first baseman Freddie Freeman said when reflecting on Betts’ initial foray to the shortstop position, “it was like a crash course.”

In Year 2, on the other hand, Betts has graduated to something of a finishing school.

Unlike last year, when the former MVP slugger switched positions just weeks before opening day, Betts had the entire offseason to prepare his game. Over the winter, he improved the technique of his glovework while fielding balls. He trained on how to throw from lower arm slots than he had in the outfield. He focused on keeping a wider and more athletic base in order to adapt to funny hops and unexpected spins. He established a base of fundamentals that, last year, he simply didn’t have; providing renewed confidence and consistency he’s been able to lean on all season.

“Preparation,” Betts said recently about the biggest difference in his shortstop play this year. “[I have been able] to prepare, have an idea of what I’m doing, instead of just hoping that athleticism wins. At this level, it doesn’t work like that. So you have to have an idea of what you’re doing. And I work hard every day. I’m out there every day early. Doing what I can to be successful.”

Such strides have been illustrated in Betts’ defensive numbers. He currently ranks seventh among qualified MLB shortstops in fielding percentage, his three errors to this point tied for the fewest among those who have made at least 50 starts. His advanced metrics are equally encouraging, ranking top-five in outs above average and defensive runs saved.

“He looks like a major league shortstop right now,” Roberts said, “where last year there were many times I didn’t feel that way.”

A finished product, however, Betts is still not.

There are subtle intricacies he has yet to fully grasp, such as where to position on relay throws from the outfield. There are infrequent, higher-difficulty plays he’s yet to learn how to handle.

One important teaching moment came early in the season, when Betts’ inability to corral a hard hooking one-hopper in a game against the Washington Nationals led to him and the coaching staff adding more unpredictable fungo-bat fielding drills into his daily pregame routine.

“It just kind of prompted a conversation of, ‘You’re gonna get different types of balls, and those are pretty rare. But what’s the process of catching that ball? And what do we need to practice?’” Woodward recalled, leading to changes that were enacted the next day.

“The drills we do now, I don’t know if anybody else can make them look as easy as he now does,” Woodward added. “When he first started, you could tell, ‘Oh man, it’s uncomfortable.’ But now, I smoke balls at him … and he’s just so under control.”

Another moment of frustration came last Sunday in New York, when Betts athletically snared a bouncing ball on his forehand up the middle … but then airmailed a backhanded, off-balance flip throw to second base while trying to turn a potential double play.

Dodgers shortstop Mookie Betts throws to first base during Monday’s game against the Cleveland Guardians.

(David Dermer / Associated Press)

“That was the first time ever in my life I’ve had to do that,” Betts said days later, prompting him to seek out more advice from Woodward and veteran shortstop teammate Miguel Rojas. “Miggy was telling me I can’t stress about it, because he got to mess that play up in high-A [when he was first learning the position]. Woody told me he got to mess that play up in double-A. I’m messing this play up for the first time ever in my life — in the big leagues.”

For Betts, it can be a frustrating dynamic, having to endorse inevitable such struggles as he seeks his desired defensive progress.

“I definitely feel I’ve grown a lot, just from the routine perspective,” he said. “But I don’t want to hurt the team, man.”

Which is why, in the days immediately afterward, he then incorporated underhand flip drills into his pregame work as well.

“You’re going to have to go through those moments to learn, to understand,” said Rojas, who has been a sounding board for Betts since last year’s initial position switch. “I don’t consider that an error. I consider it a mistake that you’re gonna learn from. Because that play is gonna happen again.”

“It’s like life in general. It’s about learning from your mistakes,” Freeman echoed. “And not that that [flip play] was a mistake. But it’s like, ‘Now I know how to adjust off of that.’ If he was not even trying to attempt things, then you’ll never know what you can really achieve out there. I think he’s learning his limits of what he can do. And I think that’s the key to it.”

Such moments, of course, also underscore the inherent risk of entrusting Betts (who still has only 132 career MLB games at shortstop) with perhaps the sport’s most challenging position.

It’s one thing for such a blunder to happen in a forgettable late May contest. It’d be far less forgiving if they were to continue popping up in important games down the stretch.

There’s also a question about whether Betts’ focus on shortstop has started to have an impact on his bat, with the 32-year-old hitting just .254 on the season while suffering incremental dips in his underlying contact metrics.

The root of those struggles, Betts believes, stems more from bad habits he developed while recovering from a stomach virus at the start of the season that saw him lose almost 20 pounds. Then again, even though he has been able to better moderate his daily pregame workload compared with the hours he’d spend every day fielding grounders last season, he is still “learning a whole new position at the big-league level,” Freeman noted, “and all his focus has been on that.”

It all creates a relatively tight needle for Betts and the Dodgers to thread the rest of the year. Betts not only has to make continued strides on defense (and prove, at a bare minimum, he won’t be a downgrade from the team’s other in-house options, such as Rojas or Tommy Edman), but, he also needs to get his swing back in a place to be an impact presence at the top of the lineup.

“It’s a lot to take on, to be a shortstop in the big leagues,” Freeman said. “But once he gets everything under control, I think that’s when the hitting will pick right back up.”

It figures to be an ongoing process, one that could have season-defining implications for the Dodgers’ World Series title defense.

Still, in the span of two months, Betts has shown enough with his glove for the Dodgers not to move him — making what started as a seemingly dubious experiment into a potentially permanent solution.

“People around baseball should be paying a little more attention to the way he’s been playing short,” Rojas said.

“He’s had a lot of different plays that he’s been able to kind of see in games,” added Roberts. “He’s a guy that loves a challenge, and he’s really realized that challenge and keeps getting better each night.”

NEW YORK — Shohei Ohtani provided the Dodgers some temporary reprieve on Sunday.

Before the game, he faced hitters for the first time since undergoing Tommy John revision surgery in 2023, drawing a large crowd in the visitor’s dugout at Citi Field as he touched 97 mph with his fastball and struck out two batters in five at-bats.

Four and a half hours later, the two-way star dazzled with his bat, as well, belting a second-deck leadoff blast in the first inning against Mets ace and fellow Japanese star Kodai Senga to tie the major league lead with 18 home runs on the season.

“I thought that infused some life into us,” manager Dave Roberts said.

Alas, it wouldn’t last, the Dodgers instead going quiet the rest of the night in a 3-1 rubber-match loss to the New York Mets.

They were doomed by bad defense early, the Mets scoring three early runs with the help of two Dodgers errors. They were frustrated by wasted opportunities at the plate later, hitting into three double plays for a second consecutive game.

It sent the team to a series defeat in the weekend’s rematch of last year’s National League Championship Series. It also dropped them to 3-6 in their last nine games and 9-11 in their last 20.

Really, outside of their 8-0 start to the season, they’ve been little better than a .500 team, going just 24-21 since then (even with another seven-game winning streak mixed in to that stretch).

And while they’re still in first place in the NL West, and trailing only the Philadelphia Phillies, Detroit Tigers and New York Yankees for the best record in baseball, they aren’t playing like a team anywhere near that distinction.

“Tonight was one of those nights that we just gave them extra outs, and they took advantage,” Roberts said.

“It’s been pretty frustrating,” echoed third baseman Max Muncy. “Just keep shooting ourselves in the foot.”

There was no bigger self-inflicted wound than the one Muncy suffered in the bottom of the first.

After two strikeouts from Landon Knack to start the inning, Juan Soto hit a sharp grounder to third that Muncy bobbled on a high hop, recovering too late to throw Soto out at first.

It was Muncy’s eighth error of the season, second-most among MLB third basemen, and first not to come on a throw.

“It’s one of those things where I’m just really not good defensively right now,” Muncy said. “Not going to shy away from it, but all I can do is keep showing up every day, working on it, trying to figure things out, trying to get better. That’s what I’ve been doing.”

On Sunday, however, there was nothing Muncy could do.

One pitch later, Pete Alonso whacked a hanging curveball from Knack for a two-run homer. The Mets (32-21) wouldn’t squander the lead the rest of the way.

“We were trying to get it down a little bit, and obviously left it up,” Knack said. “I would say he’s a little more aggressive with runners on, so was able to take advantage of it.”

As Alonso rounded the bases, Muncy stared stoicly into the distance.

“It makes you feel like the game is on your shoulders. That’s how I feel, at least,” Muncy said. “It’s a play that needs to be made, and I should have made it. It’s just a frustrating one.”

There were plenty of other moments, however, that left the Dodgers (32-21) shaking their head.

After Ohtani’s leadoff homer, their offense had the chance to add on more. Mookie Betts reached on an error. Freddie Freeman moved him to third with a double. When Will Smith followed with a fly ball to center field, it was deep enough for Betts to break for home. At least, that’s how it seemed.

Instead, Mets center fielder Tyrone Taylor delivered a strike to the plate. And after Betts was initially ruled safe on a feet-first slide, a Mets challenge got the call overturned. A chance to build some early breathing room for Knack had disappeared. And despite repeated opportunities to claw back later, the Dodgers failed to scratch anything else across the plate.

In the fourth inning, Freeman hit a leadoff single … only for Smith to promptly ground into a double-play.

Later in the inning, Teoscar Hernández doubled and Muncy walked to put two aboard … only for Andy Pages to hit a deep fly ball that died at the warning track in left.

In the fifth, the Dodgers generated their best chance against Senga … only for the right-hander to induce a two-out grounder from Smith that ended the threat.

In the sixth, Muncy drew a one-out walk … only for Pages to roll into another double play, the 42nd for the Dodgers this season (fifth-most in the majors).

“I think that the tale is we’ve just got to play clean baseball, have a good offensive approach, because we’re going to see some good pitching,” Roberts said, with the Dodgers in the midst of a 29-game stretch against nothing but playoff-contending teams.

“Case in point is Shohei didn’t get a fifth at-bat [tonight], because they made plays and they got a couple double plays and things like that. All that stuff matters. So that stuff that’s really highlighted when you’re playing against good ballclubs.”

The Mets scored their only other run against Knack — who delivered just the 14th six-inning start of the season for the club — in the third. With one on and one out, Mark Vientos hit a hard grounder up the middle that Betts impressively got to from shortstop. But then Betts misfired on a flip to second base, sailing the ball over teammate Tommy Edman’s head to put runners on the corner. A fielder’s choice from Soto in the next at-bat led to a run.

The 3-1 deficit proved too much for the Dodgers to surmount — ending a day that had begun with so much optimism around Ohtani’s two-way talents with a dud of a performance and frustrating series loss in Queens.

Mookie Betts understands the strategy.

That doesn’t mean the implication doesn’t bother him.

Five times since Betts and Shohei Ohtani flipped spots in the Dodgers’ lineup late last season — Ohtani moving to the leadoff spot, and Betts to the two-hole — opposing teams have intentionally walked Ohtani to bring Betts to the plate.

On almost every occasion, Betts has made it a regrettable decision.

That was the case again Wednesday in the Dodgers’ 9-3 win over the Athletics; a game that was close until Betts broke it open in the eighth, coming through once more after a free pass to Ohtani.

With one out in the inning, and Kiké Hernández standing at second base after being bunted over by Miguel Rojas following his leadoff single, the Athletics made the sensible choice. Manager Mark Kotsay elected to intentionally walk Ohtani, trying to avoid disaster with his club facing a 4-3 deficit. He instead wanted reliever Tyler Ferguson in a right-on-right matchup against Betts, whose up-and-down start to the season had once again been on the decline with seven hitless at-bats to begin this week’s series.

Ever since this phenomenon began last September, Betts has repeatedly acknowledged the logic behind it.

“I mean, I get it,” he said. “I wouldn’t want to pitch to Shohei either. I understand.”

But the more it has happened, the more Betts has seemed to take it personally. And on Wednesday, he let the A’s know exactly how he felt.

In a 2-and-1 count, Betts got a fastball over the heart of the plate and drove it deep to the right-center field gap. Hernández scored easily. Ohtani raced home behind him. As Dodger Stadium erupted in celebration, however, no one screamed louder than Betts.

As the former MVP and eight-time All-Star pulled into second base, he immediately turned toward the visiting first-base dugout, clenched his fists and — with three separate, pointed shouts — bellowed, “Yeah! Yeah! Yeah!” in the Athletics’ direction. There was no smile, or sigh of relief. Just a brief display of the contempt he so obviously felt.

Shohei Ohtani, right, celebrates with Kiké Hernández after scoring on Mookie Betts’ two-run double in the eighth inning Wednesday against the Athletics.

(Gina Ferazzi / Los Angeles Times)

“Just let some emotion go,” Betts said afterward. “You’re just in the game, and you kind of get lost in it.”

In his five at-bats following an intentional walk to Ohtani, Betts is now three for four with seven RBIs, including:

• A three-run home run in extra innings at Angel Stadium last September.
• A tie-breaking ninth-inning single against the Atlanta Braves a few weeks after that.
• A bases-loaded walk last week in Miami, doubling a seventh-inning lead from one run to two.
• And Wednesday’s double, which when combined with Max Muncy’s three-run homer three batters later turned what had been a close game into a six-run laugher.

“To be quite frank, it was the right baseball decision, given how Mookie was swinging the bat [compared to] Shohei,” Dodgers manager Dave Roberts said, with Betts batting .263 to Ohtani’s .304 average.

“But it was good,” Roberts said of the outcome. “Sometimes that kind of unlocks a player. It locks them in a little bit more when you take things personal. And for him to come through in that moment — it seems like when things like that do happen, he seems like he comes through more times than not.”

Betts offered a similar take, noting that “choosing to pitch to Shohei is probably, a lot of times, a losing battle” and that “I hadn’t hit anything all day,” having left two runners stranded on a flyout that ended the sixth inning in his previous at-bat.

Dodgers pitcher Yoshinobu Yamamoto delivers during the first inning Wednesday against the Athletics.

(Gina Ferazzi / Los Angeles Times)

“I’m sure if you look at the percentages,” Betts continued, “it probably adds up in their favor, for sure.”

Still, as soon as Betts watched Rojas lay down his sacrifice bunt with Ohtani on deck, “I knew when he was walking to the plate they weren’t going to pitch to him.”

So, he entered a different, more revenge-minded headspace.

“I just tried to mentally prepare to do something great,” he said.

That wasn’t the only example of greatness the Dodgers (28-15) received Wednesday.

Ohtani and Andy Pages both hit leadoff homers in the first and second innings, giving the team an early 2-0 lead.

Yoshinobu Yamamoto (5-3, 2.12 ERA) grinded out a quality six-inning, three-run start even though his velocity was down a tick and his usually pristine command remained spotty for a fourth-consecutive outing — evidenced by a hanging first-pitch curveball Tyler Soderstrom hit for a two-run homer in the third, and a leadoff walk in the fourth that set up Miguel Andujar for a go-ahead double.

Hyeseong Kim also continued his hot start to his MLB career, leveling the score at 3-3 in the fifth with a wallscraping line drive for his first big-league blast. He also added an infield single, raising his batting average to .360 since being called up two weeks ago, and made a couple nice plays defensively in his first start at Dodger Stadium.

Hyeseong Kim, right, celebrates with Shohei Ohtani after hitting his first career home run in the Dodgers’ win Wednesday.

(Gina Ferazzi / Los Angeles Times)

“As a person who always dreamed to play in this stadium, I’m really happy,” Kim, a childhood Dodgers fan while growing up in South Korea, said through interpreter Joe Lee. “I’m really thrilled right now.”

Rojas, meanwhile, had perhaps the night’s biggest hit in the sixth, coming off the bench for a pinch-hit double that scored Michael Conforto all the way from first to give the Dodgers a 4-3 lead.

“I just thought that tonight we competed really well,” Roberts said. “I thought the fight with our guys was really good.”

Still, after watching the upstart Athletics (22-21) explode for 11 runs in Tuesday’s series opener, the Dodgers knew more late-game breathing room might be required. That, Betts added, was also part of the reason he was so animated after his game-sealing double.

“We just needed something to happen to ensure a win there,” he said. “It was a mix of happiness for myself and the boys.”

Plus, his reaction so clearly epitomized, a dash of disrespect being released, as well.

“I do like the way that he takes it personally,” Roberts said. “I think that you could see that frustration kind of come out, with the joy.”