LOS ANGELES — Dave Roberts laid his bullpen woes bare. The Los Angeles Dodgers manager knows the struggles his group has faced, starting with his high-priced closer and taking just about every one of his top leverage options along with him. Only 11 groups in the sport have produced a higher ERA than the 4.19 mark the Dodgers had entering Tuesday, and none had blown more games than the nine that Tanner Scott has this season.

Scott’s frustrations are palpable, bluntly putting it over the weekend when he said “baseball hates me right now” after serving up a walk-off home run to the Baltimore Orioles’ Samuel Basallo. A night later, he was on the mound when the Dodgers got walked off again.

But the $72 million man was the man for the ninth inning on Monday night as the Dodgers sought to close out a bid at a combined no-hitter. While Scott surrendered a double to squander it, he held on for a 3-1 Dodgers victory. He will keep earning chances over the season’s final month. Roberts doesn’t have much of a choice.

“There’s a confidence thing right now that they’ve got to get over,” Roberts said this weekend. “That’s pretty much everyone included.”

So, Roberts said, he’s going to ride the arms he’s trusted to this point. That includes Scott, who was signed to handle the ninth inning and instead has looked far from the reliever who dominated the Dodgers last October. It means continuing to trust Blake Treinen, who struggled to find the strike zone during Saturday’s implosion in Baltimore. It could mean continuing to see if Kirby Yates can click back into his old form despite his propensity to allow home runs so far this season (including another Tuesday). It means continuing to ride Alex Vesia and Michael Kopech, each now back off the injured list, as well.

Kirby Yates has had a propensity to allow home runs so far this season. (Kirby Lee-Imagn Images)

“I think we are what we are right now, and it hasn’t been good,” pitching coach Mark Prior said this weekend. “Look, it can turn really quick. Those are our guys, and we believe in them. We have the utmost confidence in them. The results haven’t been there. It hasn’t been good. We have three weeks left in a season. We can get on a run.”

The Dodgers’ line since even before their underwhelming trade deadline has been to say that this could be as deep a 14-man pitching staff (including Shohei Ohtani) as they’ve fielded in any postseason run in recent memory. That is still banking a lot on the arms the Dodgers have clearly invested in. That includes Brock Stewart, who threw a bullpen session Tuesday and will face hitters this week before starting a rehab assignment.

“I feel good about who we have, and it’s who we have,” Prior said. “It’s not like that’s changing.”

The deadline for postseason eligibility has come and gone. The Dodgers only swung one trade for a reliever at the deadline in part because they uncharacteristically spent on three relievers (Scott, Treinen, Yates) over the winter.

Activating Vesia Tuesday meant optioning Ben Casparius, who hasn’t been the same ever since the Dodgers toggled with his usage and tried stretching him out to paper over their early-season rotation injuries. That, Roberts pointed out, includes struggling against right-handed hitters. Before stretching out, he held righties to a .396 OPS. Ever since early June, right-handed batters have raised their OPS against him to 1.006. His ERA has gone up with it, from 2.93 to 4.64.

A chance to work on things in Oklahoma City for a spell could be a good thing.

“He’s still a big part of what we’re doing this year,” Roberts said of Casparius.

There are still October jobs to be won. Edgardo Henriquez has impressed with his high-velocity arsenal and a revamped sinker. The Dodgers are up to five left-handers in their bullpen right now, which Roberts conceded is a tad redundant.

At least one Dodgers starter is expected to get the boot to the bullpen (likely Emmet Sheehan, who went seven innings and took a perfect game into the sixth inning of Tuesday’s 7-2 win), and the team could conceivably run multiple piggybacks over a postseason series should all their current expected starters remain upright over the rest of the season. The Dodgers still have to see if they can get Stewart, their deadline acquisition, back and effective. Even Kyle Hurt is on a rehab assignment, giving the team another hard-throwing option.

This is a group that isn’t changing. It just needs to get better.

“We’ve faced adversity before, and it seems we come out on the other side, and we’re better from it,” Vesia said. “I believe in every single one of us. And, yeah, it’s gonna be a great couple weeks.”

The door appeared to be all but closed on Roki Sasaki impacting the 2025 Dodgers. Then his first pitch Tuesday with Oklahoma City registered at 98.8 mph — matching the hardest he has thrown on American soil this season. Then came 99.6 mph. Then, later in that same at-bat to San Francisco Giants minor leaguer Wade Meckler, Sasaki hit 100.2 mph. By the next inning Sasaki had hit 100.6 mph and seemingly discovered the velocity that he’s been missing essentially since his major league debut in the Tokyo Dome in March.

That wasn’t the only encouraging sign from Sasaki, whose final outing of this rehabilitation assignment was far more promising than any that preceded it. The velocity held, suddenly making his fastball playable. He mixed in a new cutter that was tracked officially as a slider, giving him multiple fastball shapes (along with his new sinker) to help make his four-seam fastball less hittable. His splitter was in the strike zone enough for him to take advantage of its unique profile. Sasaki retired 12 of the first 15 batters he faced through his first four innings before his command and velocity backed up in the fifth and his pitch count reached 90.

Sasaki look like a viable pitching prospect again. (Kirby Lee-Imagn Images)

The stuff was better. The confidence was obvious, be it because the stuff was better, him using the PitchCom device to call his own pitches, or what, it was noticeable. He threw so hard on one first-inning pitch that his cap flew clear off his head. Over the course of his 90 pitches, he induced 16 swings and misses — twice as many as his season-high in the big leagues this season. Just as encouraging is that five of those swings and misses came on his four-seam fastball, which has been as hittable a pitch as there is in baseball in his first season in the United States.

It’s an unexpected development, but a necessary one in making Sasaki look like a viable pitching prospect again. A still-incomplete one, but a much more intriguing option than he was even a week ago.

It’s still hard to see where he fits. It’s not as if he’s pitched well enough to bounce anyone from this rotation. He also isn’t the clearest-cut candidate for the bullpen, though Roberts left the door open on Tuesday. The Dodgers will need to make a decision regardless: Tuesday was the 26th day of Sasaki’s 30-day rehab window.

“We’ll have some conversations after this one,” Roberts said.

The Dodgers made history over the last few days, even if it’s not the history they wanted. According to Sarah Langs of MLB.com, there had never been a recorded instance of a team taking a no-hitter into the ninth inning twice in a three-game span without completing either, until the Dodgers did so on Saturday and Monday night. An added wrinkle to the whole thing: the catcher behind the plate for both, Ben Rortvedt, had never caught either starting pitcher.

Rortvedt has only been in the organization since the trade deadline, and only came up to the big leagues because Will Smith got hit on the hand with a foul ball. Save for a quick study of each pitcher’s arsenals, the only experience he had with Yoshinobu Yamamoto or Tyler Glasnow before they took the mound came in the bullpen right before the game.

“Nothing’s been easy, but it’s been easier getting thrown into the fire,” Rortvedt said. “Rather than having to think about things. Obviously it’s been give and take, kind of hectic being thrown into the fire, but you kind of just have to swim at that point.”

Rortvedt, for his part, has had some practice. The longtime backup with the Twins, Yankees and Rays was traded to Tampa Bay shortly before Opening Day last season, giving him a short ramp-up to get to know a pitching staff on the fly.

“Obviously, these guys all have, like, incredible stuff,” Rortvedt said. “And with each individual, the balls that come out of their hand, dude, it’s been a lot of fun.”

He chuckled. “I haven’t slept a lot,” he said.

His day with Yamamoto on Saturday came in Rortvedt’s first start in a Dodger uniform, and a tweak in Yamamoto’s usual in-game operation. For the first time, Yamamoto wore a PitchCom device, going back and forth with Rortvedt on the pitch sequencing all the way through to Yamamoto being one out away from pulling off the no-hitter — when Yamamoto called for a cutter that Jackson Holliday got over the right field fence.

Rortvedt didn’t even notice the gem Yamamoto was putting together until at least the sixth, when the crowd surrounding him and Yamamoto between innings thinned out. Clayton Kershaw got into the fourth inning before he allowed a hit Sunday with Rortvedt behind the dish, and Glasnow worked around an early hit Monday to get through seven hitless innings with Rortvedt even more aware of what they were on the precipice of doing.

It’s not clear how long Rortvedt is going to stick around. Dalton Rushing is set to go on a rehab assignment starting Wednesday, and the veteran Rortvedt doesn’t have minor league options remaining. He’ll have at least a couple data points for a strong first impression.

“I mean, there’s something to hang your hat on,” Rortvedt said. “At the same time, close only counts in horseshoes. Yeah, I’ll be thinking about it for a while. The Yamamoto, one, I’ll be thinking about that for a while.”

(Top photo of Tanner Scott: Kirby Lee / Imagn Images)