tommy edman

Teoscar Hernández stepped into exactly the kind of situation the Dodgers had failed to capitalize on during the past couple of games: runners in scoring position. And with one out in the ninth inning, the Dodgers were running out of chances for a comeback.

Hernández worked a full count against St. Louis closer Riley O’Brien with runners on first and second. Then he got a sinker up and over the middle of the plate, a pitch he could drive. And he did.

Hernández lined it into the left-center field gap. Tommy Edman scored easily, and Mookie Betts slid across the plate head first as the throw came in high and too late.

The Dodgers walked off the Cardinals with a 3-2 victory Thursday, narrowly avoiding a series sweep at Dodger Stadium.

“We needed it,” manager Dave Roberts said. “Obviously for seven innings, it didn’t look good at all. Then we found a way to scratch one across. But a win’s a win, however it looks.”

Before Hernández’s walk-off double, the Dodgers (83-57) had taken 26 at-bats with runners in scoring position over two games. Only one of those had resulted in a hit.

Hernández, however, unlocked something on a long fly out he hit in Detroit on Saturday.

“It’s just the way my body was reacting, was more under control,” he said. “I was able to notice everything that I was doing, even though it was an out. …That was the swing that is leading to all the good results that I’ve been having lately.”

Hernández, who entered this series with a .668 OPS against right-handed pitchers, had been struggling for so long that Roberts contemplated a left-field platoon.

Teoscar Hernández hits a walk-off double against the St. Louis Cardinals in the ninth inning Thursday at Dodger Stadium.

(Eric Thayer / Los Angeles Times)

“I told Dave, if you feel like you have to use somebody else in there, just do it,” Hernández said. “But know that I am going to keep working and I’m going to try to be ready for the times that you need me.”

On Sunday in Detroit, Hernández hit a home run off Framber Valdez. And when rosters expanded on Sept. 1, the Dodgers decided against bringing up an outfielder who could share playing time with Hernández, betting that he could end his slump.

Hernández went six for 13 in three games against the Cardinals (70-71), with Roberts remarking it was “as good as I’ve seen him versus [right-handers] since April.”

“I’ve always said that we’re better when he’s in the lineup,” Roberts said. “But performance certainly matters, and this series, albeit a small sample, was really good. As you get to the postseason and towards the end of the season, we’ve got to start figuring out who we can play, who we can count on, who’s dependable. And the at-bats he’s taken these last three games, really good.”

Hernández and Edman — hitting leadoff in place of Shohei Ohtani, who got the day off while dealing with a nagging biceps problem — were the only Dodgers with hits Thursday. Edman led the team with four, but Hernández’ second knock was the most important one.

“It was huge to finally get that big hit,” Edman said of Hernández. “We were kind of pressing a little bit in those first two games. Everybody was kind of trying to do too much in the big spots. Teo came through huge in that moment. Just can’t say enough about him, and that was just such a huge at-bat, and able to kind of steal that win today.”

Those who were at Dodger Stadium on a gorgeous Friday night seemed to be in for an all-nighter.

They have Tommy Edman to thank for getting home a bit earlier.

With two outs in the 10th, Kiké Hernández on third and Kyle Tucker on first, the second baseman hit a walk-off single against Pittsburgh Pirates reliever Gregory Soto, earning the Dodgers a 5-4 win.

“Yeah, it feels great,” Edman said. “We’ve kind of been struggling a little bit in those clutch situations, myself included, so it felt really good to come through.”

Edman entered the at-bat 0 for 3 and was seemingly on the verge of keeping the 200-minute game alive in an unfavorable way.

Soto, however, threw the same low-middle sweeper that Edman fouled off one pitch earlier, and the second baseman jumped on it the second time around, propelling the Dodgers (78-51) to four consecutive wins for the first time since late July.

“That’s something I really try to take pride in — leaving past at-bats behind me — and I think I’ve done a good job of that this year,” Edman said. “I think that’s something we do really well overall as a group, and that leads to coming through in big situations like that, putting past at-bats behind you.

“One of the best feelings after grinding for 10 innings,” he added. “We had a bunch of pitchers do a really good job today.”

However, the victory was tempered by the loss of center fielder Andy Pages, who was struck in the left hand with a Bubba Chandler pitch in the third inning. Manager Dave Roberts said X-rays showed a fracture and Pages is expected to be out at least four weeks.

Yoshinobu Yamamoto helped make sure the loss of Pages was not in vain.

The right-hander brought the urgency to the mound that the Dodgers were missing during an abysmal 5-11 stretch that ended with a sweep against the Colorado Rockies this week.

“I personally felt like today’s game is very important,” Yamamoto said. “We’re gonna have [Tarik] Skubal starting [Saturday], and I just wanted to maintain the momentum, which started in Colorado.”

Yamamoto surrendered two runs — both via singles from Pirates designated hitter Nick Gonzales — on five hits over 6⅓ innings, striking out nine and walking one.

“My stuff was pretty good today,” Yamamoto said. “I was feeling pretty good out there. So even after letting runners on the bases, I just tried to focus and then take it one hitter at a time.”

Chandler, meanwhile, exited after four innings. Max Muncy hit a two-run homer in the first, and Mookie Betts contributed a two-run single in the third.

The Dodgers, with a 4-2 lead, cruised into the eighth. But Kyle Hurt gave up a tying two-run homer to Oneil Cruz.

Dodgers pitcher Yoshinobu Yamamoto delivers against the Pittsburgh Pirates in the second inning Friday night.

(Gina Ferazzi / Los Angeles Times)

Matters looked grim for the Dodgers in the 10th when Evan Phillips found himself in a one-out, bases-loaded jam.

All was well, though, once Phillips got Henry Davis to ground into an inning-ending, 6-4-3 double play.

“That was great,” Roberts said of Phillips. “I know that he’s trying to kind of build as we’re going through this, and [it] hasn’t been smooth sailing for him and the success that he’s used to. But this is a big one. Big confidence builder for him … to strand those two runners was a big outing for him.”

Edman took care of the rest.

And for maybe the first time in weeks, the Dodgers appear to be inching back to their champion ways.

“I think our guys are kind of reinterested, you know, collectively,” Roberts said before the game. “So, that’s a good thing.”

Andy Pages sustains hand fracture

Dodgers center fielder Andy Pages gets hit by a pitch during the third inning against the Pirates on Friday night.

(Gina Ferazzi / Los Angeles Times)

Roberts said Pages sustained a fracture on the back of his left hand when he was hit by the 100-mph pitch It’s unclear if he will need surgery.

“Well, it’s just really unfortunate, obviously,” Roberts said. “It’s not season-ending. … So, I would expect him back, knowing him, on the earlier side. … I feel for him because he’s having such a good year.”

Roberts said Edman is an option to fill in for Pages in center field.

In a more positive development, Will Smith faced live pitching for the first time since June, and Roberts said that the plan is to activate the catcher during the first week of September.

“Today was a good day for Will,” Roberts said. “Taking at-bats. He’ll catch a couple bullpens today. He’ll do a couple more lives. … He still needs to get his legs back under him before we feel confident that he can take down a major league game and feel good coming out of it.”

Roberts added that Smith is “gonna play in the postseason” and that there is enough time for him to reach 100% strength.

Tyler Glasnow will likely be activated during the Dodgers’ upcoming trip to Atlanta.

“I just saw him. He had a great outing — his last rehab outing,” Roberts said. “I’m not sure which day we’re gonna pencil him in against the Braves, but if all of the things check out, it’ll be that [series].”

Ohtani will return to the mound at some point this season.

“It’s gonna happen,” Roberts said. “[Ohtani] threw another bullpen. … I think that there’s going to be a live or two, and then he’ll be on the mound. I just don’t know when we’re going to do that with the scheduling.”

Dalton Rushing is “pain-free” and close to facing live pitching, according to Roberts, but the catcher is “unlikely” to return to catching this season.

“I hope I’m wrong,” Roberts said. “But he’s determined to go through the process, the progression, the build-up and get back. And we’ll see where we’re at.”

Roberts didn’t rule out the possibility of Rushing being activated as a designated hitter down the line.

The Dodgers just can’t have some peace and calm, can they? Now, an owner is getting in on the fun with some controversy.

The Dodgers needed a pivotal win Sunday afternoon against the Milwaukee Brewers. And Tarik Skubal did his part, giving up just one earned run on seven hits over six innings.

“Seemed like they had a good approach,” Skubal, who threw a season-high 109 pitches. “My job doesn’t change. I got to continue to make pitches and continue to get ahead and throw strikes, and I felt like I did that.”

But it wasn’t enough.

Milwaukee’s Logan Henderson quashed the Dodgers’ offense, giving up just three hits and one run over seven innings, to give the Brewers a 6-2 win in front of an announced crowd of 45,828.

The Dodgers (74-51) lost the four-game series 3-1 and also dropped the season series against the Brewers 4-3. The Dodgers trail Milwaukee (77-48) by three games for the best record in baseball.

“I really wanted to win this game because it could matter,” Dodgers manager Dave Roberts said. “But we didn’t, so now we got to move forward. I hope it doesn’t come back to bite us.”

Panic hasn’t — and presumably won’t — set into the Dodgers’ clubhouse. The two-time defending champions, however, are well aware they have lost 11 of their past 16 games.

“This has been cumulative,” Roberts said. “It’s been a long time since we’ve been consistent offensively. … I just don’t see the consistent plan of attack, one through nine. The results are hard, hitting’s hard, but I do think that fighting and winning pitches, spoiling pitches — that’s care, hunger. 
And that’s a reason why [when] you look at four and a half months of the season, the Brewers have outscored us. … A team that’s young and hungry. It’s certainly not talent.

“We just haven’t played clean baseball for quite some time, and that speaks to the defense and not converting an out … it’s just not winning baseball. Our pedigree [and] what we typically do is control the zone, grind it, grind at-bats [and] create stress. We’re not doing that.”

Milwaukee’s Jake Bauers beats a tag attempt by Dodgers catcher Ben Rortvedt to score in the seventh inning Sunday.

(Eric Thayer / Los Angeles Times)

The Brewers struck first with two outs in the second inning after Luis Lara grounded into a bases-loaded fielder’s choice; Tommy Edman dropped an awkward flip to second base from Mookie Betts, resulting in an error and a 1-0 Milwaukee lead.

Max Muncy got to Henderson in the fourth by hitting a tying home run 370 feet to right field. In the next inning, Milwaukee’s Jake Bauers hit a go-ahead single to right off Skubal, scoring Jackson Chourio from second after his double.

“I just got to be better in those moments,” Skubal said. “You know, the slider down and in to Lara’s got to be probably a little bit more down and in, and the changeup to Bauers has got to be a more quality pitch. … So as much as it’s in the kind of grind of at-bats, they also put some swings on some balls. But I need to execute some pitches and some two-strike counts a little better as well.”

The Brewers added two insurance runs in the seventh, as Bauers and Andrew Vaughn collected a pair of RBI knocks against left-handed reliever Alex Vesia. They got two more in the ninth after a second bases-loaded error by Edman came when he failed to field a choppy ground ball from David Hamilton, allowing Chourio and Lara to score.

“We have a lot of guys with reputations that can really pick the ball,” Dodgers catcher Ben Rortvedt said of the defensive woes. “I don’t think we’re really worried about [it]. All these things are going to help us in the long run.”

Dodgers shortstop Mookie Betts walks back to the dugout after striking out in the seventh inning.

(Eric Thayer / Los Angeles Times)

The Dodgers had a chance to crawl closer with one out in the eighth, with Teoscar Hernández on third and Hunter Feduccia on first. But Shohei Ohtani grounded into a double play against Brewers reliever Aaron Ashby.

Andy Pages hit a solo home run in the ninth, but it came too late to matter.

“It can’t happen all at once,” Roberts said of a potential turnaround. “It just kind of starts building, collectively. And once we do that, then you get the big hit, things like that. But it’s a process of: each pitch, pass the baton, valuing every single pitch. And mentally, it’s not easy, but we can do it. We’ve done it many times over before.”

The results just haven’t been there for the Dodgers.

As they head to Colorado for a three-game series against the last-place Rockies, the Dodgers aren’t expecting any breaks.

“Honestly, I think every team’s hungry because they’re chasing us,” Roberts said. “They’re trying to make a name for themselves or trying to play spoiler, whatever it is. But every team we play is going to bring their best. The guys we are going to play the next three games, they’re gonna bring their best, I promise you that.”

If there is a silver lining, it’s that Skubal seems to be acclimating just fine in L.A. — even if the two-time defending AL Cy Young winner hasn’t had his best game since joining the Dodgers.

“I just got to be more consistent,” Skubal said of his first three starts with the Dodgers. “Continue to get quality contact on the ground, and sometimes you need a little bit of luck … But the stuff on my hand is as good as it’s ever been. And honestly, my execution today was pretty good too.

“There’s always room for improvement … but [in] the same breath, you can’t beat yourself up too much. I’m not going to be perfect out there. But yeah, I need to be more efficient. That’s the standard that I hold myself to: pitching deeper into ballgames and giving our team a chance to win every time out.”

Injury updates

The Dodgers placed left-handed starter Justin Wrobleski on the 15-day injured list with left forearm inflammation and recalled right-handed reliever Kyle Hurt from triple-A Oklahoma City. Wrobleski, who has pitched a career-high 126⅓ innings this season, surrendered four runs and four hits in a loss against the Brewers on Saturday.

“We just felt collectively that Justin was the right person [to] back off the fatigue of the arm,” Roberts said. “It’s not something that he’s ever going to make an excuse for. But I do think that it’s smart for us, as an organization, to take that load off a little bit from him.”

Wrobleski has struggled recently, giving up 11 home runs over his past four starts.

Stewart, who was placed on the 15-day IL with right shoulder discomfort on July 31, said he’ll join the Dodgers on their upcoming road trip to Colorado and is hopeful he’ll be activated soon.