Teoscar Hernández and Kiké Hernández power Dodgers to comeback win over Pirates

The Dodgers entered Saturday night’s game against the Pittsburgh Pirates on a three-game losing streak with hits and runs increasingly difficult to muster.

Home runs, however, are a different matter, especially when they come from batters named Hernández.

A blast by Teoscar Hernández to begin the eighth inning put the Dodgers ahead and a pinch-hit, three-run shot by Kiké Hernández later in the inning were the difference in a 8-4 victory at a sold-out Dodger Stadium.

How bad had it become? The Dodgers came in batting .230 — 21st in baseball — with a subpar with a .308 on-base percentage. Yet they ranked fifth with a .421 slugging percentage because they lead baseball with 43 home runs.

Most years, a healthy portion of the long balls would be courtesy of Max Muncy. But the malady afflicting much of the Dodgers lineup seems to have infected the third baseman with a particularly virulent strain. If antibiotics were the cure, he’d be taking a handful. Rest isn’t really what he’d prefer.

Read more: Pirates’ Tommy Pham suspended, fined for making crude hand-jerking gesture at Angel fans

How bad is it for a slugger who hit 35 or more home runs in four of his previous seven Dodgers seasons? Another Max Muncy, a promising rookie infielder with the Athletics from Thousand Oaks High, was sent back to triple-A a few days ago after batting .176 with one home run in 68 at-bats.

That’s better than the Dodgers’ Muncy, who has zero homers and four runs batted in while batting .167 over 78 at-bats. His characteristically low batting average — career mark: .225 — normally is palatable because he walks a ton, sporting a .350 career on-base percentage. But this season, seemingly emboldened by his power outage, opposing pitchers have walked him only 12 times in 25 games.

“You know what it’s interesting is, there’s some balls that are barreled, that aren’t going out, but also there’s still a lot of swing and miss,” manager Dave Roberts said. “So it just, it’s all sort of, right now, pretty puzzling, but I know he’s trying to find his way out.

“But yeah, I mean, to think through April he hasn’t hit a homer, I think that surprises everyone.”

A couple of other Dodgers seemed to get well quick against Pirates pitching. Shohei Ohtani hit two doubles and a triple. Andy Pages had three hits for the second game in a row. L.A. outhit Pittsburgh 11-8.

Dodgers rookie Roki Sasaki, in his sixth start, recovered the velocity that diminished in his previous outing, consistently throwing his fastball 96 mph. The right-hander pitched a creditable 5 2/3 innings, giving up three runs and two hits while striking out four and walking two, leaving with the score tied 3-3.

ONeil Cruz crushed the Japanese right-hander’s first pitch, an elevated fastball, over the center field wall, but Sasaki retired 11 of the next 14 batters before the Pirates added two runs in the fifth on three hits. Sasaki retired the next four batters before hitting Ke’Bryan Hayes with a pitch, prompting Roberts’ hook.

It marked the third consecutive start of five or more innings for the 23-year-old Sasaki, who is still seeking his first Major League victory after posting a 30-15 record for Chiba Lotte of the Japanese League.

The Pirates took a 4-3 lead in the seventh against left-hander Jack Dreyer, who gave up two singles and a walk to load the bases with none out. Bryan Reynolds drove in the run with a fielders choice ground ball to first baseman Freddie Freeman before right-hander Evan Phillips came on the retire the next two batters.

The third out came on a diving play by Freeman, the third notable play made by the Dodgers. Center fielder Pages robbed Reynolds of a home run in the fifth inning and Teoscar Hernández threw out Joey Bart at the plate after charging a fly ball and throwing on the run in the second.

Read more: Roki Sasaki takes another step forward, Dodgers’ offense regresses in laugher of a loss

The Dodgers scored two in the first when Ohtani and Teoscar Hernández both doubled and Hernández scored on a throwing error by second baseman Todd Frazier. They tied the score 4-4 in the seventh on Ohtani’s ringing double to left center that scored Pages.

Ohtani and Pages had been among those struggling until recently. Roberts delivered a message that several slumping Dodgers seemed to heed at just the right moment.

“It’s not about the number of pitches you see, it’s about getting your pitch and doing something with it,” he said. “That’s the message for everyone. Not trying to chase how many pitches you can accrue in an at-bat.

A quality at-bat for me is, you get a good pitch to hit, your pitch, and you hit it hard. And we’ll take whatever results from that.”

All the better when the result is eighth-inning home runs by Hernández and Hernández.

Tony Gonsolin ready for season debut

It’s been a long wait for Tony Gonsolin, who is expected to start for the Dodgers on Wednesday against the Miami Marlins. Gonsolin has been sidelined with a litany of injuries since August 2023, when he was shut down because of an ulnar collateral ligament tear in his right elbow that required Tommy John surgery.

Gonsolin missed all last season and might have opened this season on the active roster but he tweaked his back while lifting weights near the end of spring training. In four triple-A rehab appearances, he has a 3.86 ERA over 14 innings while striking out 16, giving up 12 hits and six walks.

Roberts said Gonsolin threw a bullpen Saturday and that making his first start Wednesday “makes a lot of sense.”

Few pitchers have shown the knack for notching wins that Gonsolin has since debuting with the Dodgers in 2019. He is 34-11 (.756 winning percentage), including a sparkling 16-1 mark in 2022 when he sported a 2.14 ERA and gave up only 79 hits in 130 1/3 innings over 24 starts.

The Dodgers would welcome a return that even an approximation of that effectiveness. The fifth spot in the starting rotation has been a problem all season, with young starters Landon Knack (7.27 ERA), Justin Wrobleski (14.40) and Bobby Miller (18.00) pitching poorly.

This story originally appeared in Los Angeles Times.

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