Gavin Stone 'unlikely' to return to Dodgers, as Landon Knack adds to case for postseason role

First, a caveat. The Miami Marlins are not a good Major League Baseball team.

The rebuilding club has the second-most losses and second-fewest runs scored. On Wednesday night, its lineup featured only one hitter with a batting average above .262. Dominating the Marlins does not exactly portend postseason success.

Still, what Landon Knack did at loanDepot Park, in the Dodgers’ 8-4 win over their middling hosts, was impressive. Especially for a rookie pitcher auditioning for a potential postseason rotation.

In one of his best starts, Knack pitched five scoreless innings while giving up just two hits. He struck out seven, just one off his season high, while only walking two. Most importantly, he flashed the kind of stuff that could play come October, not only averaging a season-best 94.7 mph with his four-seam fastball, but also commanding it with nearly flawless precision.

“Felt really good to get things back on track a little bit, right from the rip,” said Knack, who was coming off a season-worst two-inning, five-run start against Atlanta last Saturday. “[I wanted to] really just kind of rip it from the beginning. Felt really good.”

In an unexpected development, Knack has been one of the most reliable pitchers on the Dodgers’ banged-up staff, an ever-changing group that seemingly has started to solidify in recent days.

After announcing that Tyler Glasnow is expected to miss the rest of the season over the weekend, manager Dave Roberts offered similar news Wednesday about right-hander Gavin Stone, saying the rookie star is “very unlikely” to pitch again this year as he continues to battle a shoulder injury.

Read more: Dodgers option Bobby Miller to triple-A again after another choppy outing

Stone hasn’t given up all hope yet, saying he wants to see how his shoulder feels once he starts playing catch again next week. But Stone’s return already is taking longer than expected, and with less than two weeks remaining in the regular season, there is hardly time left for him to build back up and be a potential postseason contributor.

The Dodgers also optioned struggling right-hander Bobby Miller to the minors Wednesday, all but ending a season in which he struggled to an 8.52 earned-run average. That leaves the Dodgers with only a handful of starting pitchers to round out a rotation headlined by Jack Flaherty and Yoshinobu Yamamoto.

There’s Walker Buehler, who has shown signs of progress lately after struggling earlier this season in his return from Tommy John surgery. There’s Clayton Kershaw, who threw a bullpen session of 80-plus pitches Wednesday in the biggest step yet of his recovery from a toe injury. There’s even Tony Gonsolin, a long-shot option who will throw his third minor-league rehab start this weekend, barely 12 months removed from Tommy John surgery.

And then there’s Knack, whose 3.39 ERA in 13 outings (11 starts) is third best among Dodgers pitchers with at least five starts, trailing only Yamamoto and Flaherty.

“I just really like the way he has an arsenal that can get different hitters out,” said Roberts, who was particularly impressed by Knack’s ability to escape jams in the first and fifth with inning-ending strikeouts.

“That’s telling,” Roberts added. “These are things that play in October, having weapons at his disposal that he can deploy or use at any point in time.”

There still are holes in the second-round draft pick’s thin big-league résumé. Knack doesn’t have the veteran experience of Buehler and Kershaw, who is not guaranteed to return in time for a potential playoff run but appears to be trending that way. Knack hasn’t consistently shown overwhelming stuff, either, entering Wednesday with below-league-average marks in whiff rate and fastball velocity.

His struggles against an actual postseason contender in the Braves also were troubling, an outing so poor that Knack said he did nothing but “angrily stew” on it over the last few days.

“I was just very angry, ready to bounce back from that,” Knack said.

The way he did Wednesday — in a game in which the Dodgers got home runs from Will Smith, Tommy Edman and Kiké Hernández, in addition to Shohei Ohtani’s 49th steal, to lower their magic number for an NL West division title to seven — hinted that there could be more in the tank.

“I just like the confidence that he’s exuding on the mound,” Roberts said, in response to a question about Knack’s October prospects. “So yeah, when you look out, look forward, he’s certainly really in the mix.”

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Rojas rests, Betts plays second

Shortstop Miguel Rojas was scratched from the lineup but said it was only because of lingering soreness in his left leg. Roberts said the club would reevaluate Rojas on Thursday.

In his absence, Mookie Betts played second base, his first start back on the dirt since reprising his old right field role last month upon returning from a broken hand. Roberts said it was only a temporary switch, intended to give Betts a little rest from the rigors of right field amid a stretch of 10 straight games.

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This story originally appeared in Los Angeles Times.