Bullpen will be tasked with bailing out battered and injured Dodgers in Game 4

Their starting shortstop, a defensive talent who is having one of the best offensive seasons of his 11-year career, left Tuesday night's game in the third inning after suffering a left adductor muscle strain not once, not twice, but three times in the first three innings , and he seems doubtful for Wednesday night.

Their first baseman and No. 3 hitter, an eight-time All-Star and the 2020 National League Most Valuable Player, was pulled for a pinch-runner in the eighth inning, leaving his badly sprained right ankle hurting so much he could barely jog to first Base after his two-out single, and he is questionable for Wednesday night.

Their rotation is so thin in just three playoff games that they will use a bullpen game facing a win-or-go home game in the National League Division Series on Wednesday night.

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Is this a way to win a World Series?

If you're the Dodgers, you have no choice.

“We can't look at the mountain – we just have to look at the task ahead, and that's one pitch at a time,” Dodgers right fielder Mookie Betts said after the 6-5 loss in Game 3 Tuesday night against the San Diego Padres at Petco Park brought them to the brink of elimination in the best-of-five series.

“Every time we bat we have to make something happen. (Whether we're) up or down, it doesn't matter. There will obviously be a lot more pressure. Every attack will be exponentially more important, so we have to find a way to take them down.”

That task begins on the mound, where a deep and versatile bullpen that has been the backbone of the pitching staff all season will try to stifle an explosive Padres offense that hit Dodgers starter Walker Buehler in the second inning of Game 3 earned a sixth-place finish after hitting six home runs in a 10-2 win over the Dodgers in Game 2.

Manager Dave Roberts said a substitute player would start Wednesday night. The team's mainstays – Blake Treinen, Michael Kopech, Evan Phillips, Alex Vesia, Anthony Banda and Ryan Brasier – will be available, although Banda, who pitched 1⅓ innings Tuesday night, and Kopech, who pitched one inning, may be limited could.

Padres manager Mike Schildt said Dylan Cease, who threw 82 pitches in 3 ⅓ innings in Game 1 Saturday night, allowing five runs and six hits, will begin Game 4 on a three-day break.

“It’s basically all hands on deck knowing we have Jack (Flaherty) and (Yoshinobu) Yamamoto for a possible Game 5,” Roberts said. “Certainly this situation isn't ideal, but I feel like the fact that we can stay away from (most of) the leverage arms gives these guys three days off before they start Game 4 and we can still kind of get them push a little harder.” .”

Roberts may also have to put together a lineup after Rojas tweaked his injured left leg twice in the second inning, first while trying — and failing — to hit a double play on the grounder from preventing Jake Cronenworth's infield single from reaching the outfield two batters later .

Read more: The Dodgers can't overcome the disastrous inning loss in NLDS Game 3 to the Padres

Rojas stayed in the game and hit a single to spark the Dodgers' four-run rally to start the third. Rojas took second on a single by Shohei Ohtani, and when Betts followed with a single up the middle, Rojas raced around third just as third base coach Dino Ebel put up a stop sign. Rojas limped back to the bag and was replaced by Andy Pages.

“I don’t know,” Rojas said when asked if he would miss the rest of this series. “Let’s see how I wake up and get here (Wednesday). I will do everything I can to be available, but of course this question is not easy to answer at the moment.”

Rojas, who fielded Bogaerts' chopper up the middle but pounced on the second-base bag too late to force Jackson Merrill out, then kicked the air himself, and not just because he certainly wasn't taking the ball to second -Baseman Gavin Lux went ballistic.

“It was also the wrong decision for my body and my health,” he said, “because that was the game in which I aggravated the injury.”

Freeman, who injured his ankle in the final week of the regular season, had to undergo hours of daily treatments and take painkillers and injections to start the first three games, but was taken out of Game 2 in the sixth inning and was unable to finish Game 3 on Tuesday evening.

“It’s pretty bad,” Freeman said after Tuesday night’s game.

How does Freeman feel about playing Wednesday night?

“Tomorrow is tomorrow,” he said. “There is still a lot to be done before these games, but I did it today and tomorrow we will meet again and start the treatment again.”

If Rojas is unable to play on Wednesday, Tommy Edman would move from center field to shortstop and Pages would likely play center field. If Freeman is unable to play, Max Muncy would move from third base to first base and Kiké Hernández would play third base.

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“Given the fact that it’s an elimination game, I’m sure he wants to be there,” Roberts said of Rojas. “But we have to assess at what cost and how effective he can be, be it defensively with distance or at the plate. So I don’t know at the moment.”

Does the same apply to Freeman?

“The same goes for Freddie,” Roberts said. “That's correct.”

Roberts saw a bright spot Tuesday night – Betts, who was three for 44 (.068) in his last 12 playoff games through Game 4 of the 2021 NL Championship Series, broke an 0-for-23 playoff drought with a first-inning home run 342-foot drive that went off the glove of leaping left fielder Jurickson Profar — and a single in the third inning.

But after Teoscar Hernández's grand slam in the third inning, the Dodgers went 1 for 21 with seven strikeouts in the final 6 ⅔ innings off Padres starter Michael King and relievers Jeremiah Estrada, Jason Adam, Tanner Scott and Robert Suarez.

“We just have to keep playing,” Betts said. “I don’t think there’s a magic potion or anything. We’re all trying to accomplish the same thing – win a World Series – and every game is a stepping stone toward that.”

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This story originally appeared in the Los Angeles Times.