Moving Teoscar Hernández in lineup pays off for Dodgers in sweeping win over Tigers

Based on the Dodgers’ original lineup, Teoscar Hernández would have been in the dugout during the biggest at-bat of Saturday night’s game.

Originally, on a night the Dodgers gave normal No. 2 hitter Mookie Betts a scheduled day off following his battle with a stomach virus last week, the team had switch-hitter Tommy Edman following leadoff man Shohei Ohtani in the batting order.

About an hour before first pitch, however, the team announced a late change.

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In the new lineup, Hernández was bumped up to second from the cleanup spot. Edman, who has been a significantly worse hitter from the left side of the plate since joining the Dodgers last year, was dropped to eighth against Detroit Tigers right-hander Reese Olson.

The switch meant that, when the Tigers intentionally walked Ohtani with a runner on third and two outs in the fifth, it was Hernández who came to the plate in what was then a tied ballgame.

Sometimes in baseball, those are the fine margins on which games can be decided.

On cue, Hernández produced the biggest swing of the Dodgers’ 7-3 win over the Tigers in his pivotal fifth-inning at-bat, lining a two-run double inside the third-base bag to help the Dodgers extend their perfect record to start the season to 5-0.

Like the four wins that preceded this one, the Dodgers’ performance was far from flawless. Rookie phenom Roki Sasaki failed to get out of the second inning in his first career Dodger Stadium start, struggling with his command again in a two-run, four-walk, 1 ⅔-inning outing.

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The Dodgers’ bats, meanwhile, managed just two early runs off Olson; the first via a Freddie Freeman solo home run in the first, the second when Andy Pages ran through a stop sign from third-base coach Dino Ebel in the second inning but scored on a wayward throw to the plate.

However, in what has become an early theme of the team’s title-defense season, the Dodgers found a way to pull away late. Hernández’s double gave them their first lead. Will Smith and Edman extended it with solo home runs in each of the next two innings.

And despite being called upon for more than seven innings of work, the bullpen posted almost nothing but zeroes the rest of the way, completing the club’s second straight series sweep to open the season.

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This story originally appeared in Los Angeles Times.