DETROIT — Fresh off a walk-off loss the day before, Dave Roberts was asked about his team’s recent play and couldn’t stifle a yawn. Given the Los Angeles Dodgers’ snoozefest of an offense lately, the manager’s reaction felt appropriate.

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But after scuffling for most of the road trip, Los Angeles broke out Sunday for a 6-1 win in the rubber match of a three-game set against the Detroit Tigers. Teoscar Hernández, who had been slumping, hit a two-run home run, and consecutive run-scoring wild pitches from Tigers reliever Tanner Rainey certainly helped.

“They’ve had some internal meetings amongst themselves as far as position players,” Roberts said postgame. “It was good to see Teo break out today. I know he’s been wanting it. Just the at-bats, the walks, controlling the strike zone, throwing out some hits, building some innings — it was really good to see.”

The win was a step in the right direction for a lineup that has struggled at the plate for most of the last two months. The Dodgers know they’ll need to fare far better through the final four weeks of the regular season.

The Dodgers were one of baseball’s best offenses in the first half, slugging .434, hitting the second-most home runs in the National League (127) and scoring the third-most runs in the majors (506).

July and August have gone far differently. Dodgers hitters combined for a .247/.316/.395 line in July and came into Sunday hitting .240/.310/.376 in August. Their 164 runs scored since the All-Star break rank in the bottom third of the majors. Their 42 homers rank in the bottom half.

Considering their roster, the Dodgers should have better numbers, and it has left Roberts searching for answers.

“This has been two months,” Roberts said before Sunday’s game. “Honestly, I think every night is different. Whether it’s not having a good two-strike approach, not hitting with runners in scoring position, situationally, getting a lead-off guy on, controlling the strike zone.

“I’m just trying to figure out solutions,” he added. “We’re all frustrated. We know we should be better. But again, now it’s more of, ‘What are we gonna do about it?’”

Mookie Betts is hitting .239. Kyle Tucker is hitting .228. Freddie Freeman has not homered since July 4. Shohei Ohtani, whose return to the mound is now uncertain after he was tentatively scheduled to start Sunday or Tuesday, has an average below .200 and an OPS below .800 over his last 15 games. It is fair to correlate his slump to when he began ramping up to pitch again.

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The Dodgers are without Andy Pages, easily their best right-handed hitter this year, until at least the final week of the regular season, which only exacerbates these issues.

“We need to get it going as a group,” Freeman said. “It’s on us to figure out a way to score more than one to two runs a game.”

Expanded rosters should help. Will Smith is set to rejoin the Dodgers after being sidelined since early June with neck spasms. It is unlikely the Dodgers will carry three catchers, which opens another roster spot. Dodgers’ brass has refrained from dipping into its robust pool of outfield prospects, but the open roster spot could change their thinking.

“Certainly looking at a left-handed bat,” Roberts said. “I think that that’s something that we could use if we’re talking about adding a player.”

If that is the route the Dodgers go, outfielder James Tibbs III appears to be the most logical candidate for a promotion, especially with Dalton Rushing not expected back from the injured list until mid-September. The 23-year-old Tibbs is hitting .295 with a .965 OPS for Triple-A Oklahoma City, with 27 homers over 124 games. Notably, Tibbs was out of Oklahoma City’s lineup Sunday.

The Dodgers are no strangers to the stretch run. They have been conditioned to know when to take their foot off the gas of a 162-game season and when to accelerate. With four weeks left in the regular season, it’s time to pick up speed.

“We know who we are as a team. We have a great offensive group, and that’s what the back of our baseball cards say. But we need to start playing better and hitting better because we are facing 1s and 2s every single day in the playoffs. So it’d be nice to string together some offensive outbursts so we can feel confident going in.”

As the calendar flips to September, it’s no longer about what this team has done in the past.

“The thing with most of our guys, they have a track record, and that’s pretty telling,” Roberts said. “And then the question is, who are guys right now versus what they’ve been?”

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It’s up to the hitters to answer that question.

This article originally appeared in The Athletic.

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