a batter as the Reds rallied to win.

Against the Phillies, Ferguson entered a tie game in the ninth and retired the first two batters he faced, but left a cutter over the heart of the plate to Schwarber, who sent it into the upper deck in right field.

“Just one bad pitch to a really good hitter,” Ferguson said. “Left it over the middle of the plate. That’s what they do.”

With the Dodgers searching for answers in the bullpen, manager Dave Roberts has turned to Ferguson in higher-leverage situations. He has entered in the ninth inning four times in his past five outings, twice in save situations. He has one save but two losses and has allowed runs in each appearance — seven runs in all while recording seven outs.

“He’s frustrated. You never want to get walked off,” Roberts said. “But that potential comes with pitching late in games. I liked the way he threw the baseball tonight. One pitch he’d like to have back, but at times you gotta give the hitter credit. Kyle put a good swing on it.”

Roberts had Evan Phillips warming up during the top of the ninth but said he was only going to use him if the Dodgers took the lead. Phillips had pitched in three of the previous five games.

Roberts said he had a short talk with Ferguson after the game, relaying a positive message.

“I was pretty upset with the way he handled it the other night in that save situation as far as how he carried himself. I used the phrase ‘sped up on him.’ That bothers me,” Roberts said. “Tonight, that wasn’t the case. For me, for guys that you can trust in leverage, they’ve got to kind of go about things the right way as far as how they carry themselves on the mound — the poise, the demeanor and be able to weather crowd noise, a missed call, whatever it might be.

“The result wasn’t good, but tonight was a step in the right direction for me with Caleb. He’s gonna pitch in a lot of big spots for us this year.”

The Dodgers have now lost five of their past six games and 12 of their past 21 — a stretch that began with Dustin May and Julio Urias suffering injuries in back-to-back games. With May and Urias removed from the rotation, Dodgers starting pitchers have a 5.61 ERA in their past 19 games (using Michael Grove’s bulk innings Friday, not Victor Gonzalez’s two-out appearance as an opener).

The Dodgers used an opener Friday night, sending the left-handed Gonzalez out to face the top of the Phillies’ lineup as a way to minimize Grove’s exposure to the left-handed hitters lurking there.

Coming into the game, Grove had allowed a .315 batting average and .967 OPS to left-handed hitters in his first 12 major league games while holding right-handers to .228 and .657 — hence the opener strategy.

It got the Dodgers through the first two innings with a 1-0 lead. In the third, however, the left-handed Schwarber drilled a triple off the center field wall and scored on an RBI single by Bryce Harper, another lefty.

An inning later, things flipped on Grove, Edmundo Sosa led off with a checked swing through the box. Second baseman Miguel Vargas fielded the ball in front of second base, but lost the handle as he was transferring it to his throwing hand and Sosa was safe.

Grove walked Schwarber, then gave up an RBI double to Nick Castellanos and threw a wild pitch that allowed Schwarber to trot home. After Harper flied out, Trea Turner added an RBI single. Sosa, Castellanos and Turner are all right-handed hitters.

The Dodgers haven’t been able to outhit all of their pitching problems — but they have certainly tried. Held to one run through six innings by Phillies left-hander Ranger Suarez, Betts and Freddie Freeman hit back-to-back home runs — Betts with a man on — to tie the score in the seventh inning.

But they stranded a runner at third after J.D. Martinez led off with a double in the eighth inning (his second of the game) and the game went into the ninth tied. It ended with Schwarber throwing his arms into the sky.