The last East Coast road trip of the season starts Tuesday, against two teams with whom the Dodgers should have an easier time. But as we’ve seen lately, that doesn’t always happen.

The Dodgers just barely managed to take one game from the Arizona Diamondbacks, thanks to a walk-off home run from a pinch-hitting Will Smith on Sunday afternoon. Now after an off day, they open up a three-game series in Pittsburgh.

The Dodgers could use starting off in the win column. In the nine series they had in the month of August, they lost the first game in five of those series and then went on to tie or lose those series.

I’m not sure if this exactly counts as “loss stopper” scenario, but Clayton Kershaw has been excellent in that capacity this season, pitching well when the Dodgers need him to the m

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