LOS ANGELES >> There are a lot of dangerous jobs — loggers, high-steel ironworkers, lion tamers and, if reality TV is to be believed, ice-road truckers.

It might be time to add "Dodgers starting pitcher” to the list of hazardous occupations.

River Ryan took a shutout into the fifth inning Saturday night only to leave the game after reacting with discomfort following a slider thrown wide of the strike zone. Ryan said he felt tightness in his right forearm. He will undergo an MRI today.

The Dodgers’ bullpen picked up from there, answering yet another early call to work and taking it from there as the Dodgers beat the Pittsburgh Pirates 4-1 Saturday night.

The win maintained the Dodgers’ lead in the NL West on another day when both of their pursuers, San Diego and Arizona, won again.

“Third inning, I started feeling a little tightness in my forearm,” Ryan said. “I got the Theragun, ran it through my arm a little bit. Went back out there for the fifth. Last two pitches, really started to tighten up on me a little bit. I begged Doc to let me keep going, but he pulled the plug on it.”

Manager Dave Roberts said Ryan will go on the injured list as they await the results of his MRI. Ryan becomes the 10th starting pitcher the Dodgers have placed on the IL this season (including Tony Gonsolin, Emmett Sheehan and Dustin May, who won’t throw a pitch this year).

“This is probably the highest number I’ve dealt with. And really quality arms,” Roberts said. “You try to do everything you can to prepare them, take care of them, give them extra rest. Right now, it’s just happening a lot, certainly to us.”

If it has happened to Ryan now, he thinks the stress of MLB’s 15-second pitch clock is to blame.

“The pitch clock definitely makes you speed up a lot. Which back in the day you didn’t have to speed up as much when you threw,” he said. “Throwing back-to-back pitches within 15 seconds, it starts to take a toll. But I’m going to go to the doctor tomorrow morning and see how it pans out.”

Matched up against rookie sensation Paul Skenes (the NL’s starter in the All-Star Game), Ryan was the rookie who was more in command of the moment — thanks to some stellar defense.

Ryan started it himself with the play of the night on the first play of the game. Ryan was a shortstop as well as closer in college who flirted with the possibility of a two-way career before the Dodgers turned him toward pitching full time. He looked like a shortstop when he bare-handed Isiah Kiner-Falefa’s chopped ground ball on the grass near the third-base line and made a spinning, nearly-blind, off-balance throw to get him at first base.

“River’s play in the first -- the level of difficulty, I don’t see a pitcher making that play,” Roberts said. “That’s extremely difficult, athletic, arm strength to make the throw.”

Defense like that allowed Ryan to take a four-hit shutout into the fifth inning. He left with the Dodgers leading 4-0 thanks largely to Gavin Lux.

When the Dodgers faced Skenes for the first time in Pittsburgh earlier this season, Lux struck out twice.

In his first two at-bats Saturday, though, Lux lined an RBI double to center and a two-run single to right.

Lux has been the Dodgers’ best hitter over the past month, batting .364 (28 for 77) with seven doubles, four home runs and 18 RBIs in 26 games.

Teoscar Hernandez added a solo home run in the fifth inning for the Dodgers’ fourth run off Skenes.