LOS ANGELES — Like some magic solvent, the Dodgers’ lineup is taking starting pitchers with 5.00 ERAs and making them look shiny and new again.

For the fourth time in their past eight games, the Dodgers faced a starting pitcher who began the game with an ERA in that unsightly numerical neighborhood. And for the fourth time in those starts, the Dodgers’ offense could do nothing.

Left-hander Eduardo Rodriguez had a 5.67 ERA through 23 starts for the Arizona Diamondbacks this season. In the 24th, he held the Dodgers scoreless on four hits for six innings as the Diamondbacks beat the Dodgers, 6-1, on Saturday night.

The second-place San Diego Padres won their game in Minnesota handily on Saturday, so the Dodgers’ lead in the National League West is back down to one game.

“We’ve come out pretty flat the last two games after the day off. We can’t keep doing this. We have to be more consistent,” utility man Kiké Hernandez said of the two-game losing streak that has followed a four-game winning streak.

“We haven’t been very good the last two games.”

The four pitchers that have shut them down in the past eight games have not been very good for much of this season. Rodriguez joins Yu Darvish and Nestor Cortes (in San Diego last weekend) and teammate Zac Gallen Friday night as 5.00-ERA starters who sandbagged the Dodgers. That quartet allowed one run on eight hits in 24 innings against the Dodgers.

“I can’t (explain that),” Dodgers manager Dave Roberts said. “Every day, I write the lineup down and I feel good about the guys that we’re running out there. It comes to having a plan. And when you have an opportunity to take good at-bats, you gotta do your job.

“The pitchers that we faced, that you referenced, haven’t been having good years. Any given night, any pitcher can throw out a good one. You can only tip your cap so many times. I still feel like our guys are better, but all that matters is how you perform. And against those guys, they got the best of us.”

The Dodgers did have scoring opportunities against Rodriguez but were guilty of “a lot of things that I’m not going to get into, that just lends itself to really uncharacteristic lack of focus,” Roberts said.

“Those guys earned the win,” Roberts said. “But I can also say, in some parts, we gave it away. We beat ourselves. This is a tough one. I just really can’t excuse it or rationalize it, I guess.”

Two of those mistakes came on the bases.

Freddie Freeman led off the fourth with a double but ran into a fielder’s choice on Andy Pages’ ground ball to third base.

“That was something that’s obviously for him, very uncharacteristic,” Roberts said. “And it just kind of happens, where a lot of these things happen in one night. But he’s as good a baserunner as I’ve been around. It’s just unfortunate that one.”

In the fifth, Kiké Hernandez led off with a single, moved to third on a double by Miguel Rojas and tried to score on Shohei Ohtani’s fly ball to left field.

Diamondbacks left fielder Lourdes Gurriel Jr. made a strong throw, but wide of home plate. Catcher Gabriel Moreno went into foul territory to catch it and reached back to tag Hernandez as he lunged for home plate. Hernandez’s decision not to slide might have been costly. Moreno made the tag just as Hernandez reached the plate and was ruled out. A replay review upheld the call.

“Fly ball to left field. Tag situation. I tagged and went home,” Hernandez said. “The throw took the catcher towards where Mookie was, telling me to slide. I didn’t see Mookie (Betts). I didn’t slide and I was out. I thought I was safe.

“I feel like that play could have changed the momentum of the game. It didn’t go our way.”

As the on-deck hitter, it is Betts’ responsibility to get in the runner’s line of sight and signal whether he should slide or not and which direction to avoid the tag. Betts was well to the left of home plate, not in Hernandez’s direct line of sight.

“Obviously, Gurriel makes a really good throw, good play, and he couldn’t see Mookie to say to slide,” Roberts said. “You can kind of talk about the mechanics, but we just didn’t execute a play.”

Don’t those mechanics require Betts to be behind home plate in the runner’s line of sight, not off to the side?

“You know what? Ideally, you gotta be in a better lane for the runner to see you, and he just didn’t get there in time,” Roberts acknowledged.

The Dodgers had another chance to change the momentum with the game still scoreless in the sixth. Will Smith and Freeman drew back-to-back walks to start the inning. But Teoscar Hernandez struck out and Pages hit into a double play, making the Dodgers 0 for 6 with runners in scoring position.

At the same time, Tyler Glasnow was having the best start of his injury-interrupted season.

Glasnow took a perfect game into the fourth inning and a no-hitter into the sixth (thanks to an overturned call at first base in the fourth inning).

As well as he pitched for six innings, the Dodgers gave him no margin for error.

Corbin Carroll started the seventh inning by taking a slider down and in and lifting it over the wall in right field. Gurriel followed with a sinking line drive that Pages dove for in center field but couldn’t corral. That went for a double.

Gurriel held up on a drive by Blaze Alexander that Teoscar Hernandez couldn’t get to at the wall in right field, putting runners at second and third.

The Dodgers couldn’t score one run on Ohtani’s potential sacrifice fly in the fifth – but the Diamondbacks scored two on one in the seventh.

Gurriel tagged up and scored on Moreno’s flyout to center field. Alexander tagged at second, went to third and then home when Pages’ throw got away.

“All my pitches were working early,” Glasnow said. “That last inning, I just (made) too many hittable pitches. Nothing was really sharp, and they took advantage of it.

“I’m pretty frustrated with that last inning for myself. I know our team will come back and play better. I’m just frustrated right now.”

Down 3-0, the Dodgers finally ended a 15-inning scoreless streak against a Diamondbacks team that ranks 24th in MLB in team ERA (4.49 entering Saturday) on Betts’ two-out RBI single in the bottom of the seventh.

But Vargas’ three-run home run off Kirby Yates in the ninth put the game away for the Diamondbacks.

“I am (surprised),” Roberts said when asked about his team’s apparent inability to maintain a consistent level of focus while in a division race.

“I know that the guys understand where we’re at as far as the opportunity we have. And yeah, I would expect them to take it and run and seize the opportunity, without me having to kind of bring it to light. I mean, it’s right there. This is a great opportunity that we have, and you got to embrace it. You got to want to be out there. You got to have fun competing. And it just seems like the last couple nights, at some points it was an unrecognizable ballclub. We still got a lot of talent. We’re still in a decent spot, but we’ve got to go play. We got to play better. We do.”

Originally Published: August 30, 2025 at 10:13 PM PDT