ATLANTA – For months, it looked like a foregone conclusion that the Dodgers were going to wrap up one of the top two seeds in the National League, which would earn them a first-round bye in the current playoff format.

But over the last couple of weeks, the Dodgers have taken massive injury hits to their pitching staff and their play on the field has been as inconsistent as it’s been in recent memory.

On Saturday, it was more of the same for the Dodgers. Before the game, they learned Tyler Glasnow won’t return this season; he’ll be sidelined for an extended period of time with a sprained right elbow. Hours later, the Dodgers’ pitching staff had no answers once again, losing a second consecutive game, 10-1, at Truist Park.

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“If you look at the last seven days, we haven’t done a good job whether we’ve won or lost, it hasn’t been clean baseball,” said Dodgers manager Dave Roberts. “Those things that we have to address and we have to be better at those things if we want to be the ballclub that we expect to be.”

Jack Flaherty, who has been the Dodgers’ most consistent starter since being acquired from the Tigers at the Trade Deadline, had his worst start since joining the team, allowing four runs and lasting just three innings. Flaherty needed 83 pitches, including 38 in the third inning, to get through his outing.

“I think just doing the little things right,” Flaherty said, when asked what was lacking tonight. “I don’t know how many times I got strike one. I didn’t do a good job of making them swing the bats. They put themselves in good counts and the fastball was kind of all over the place. You just try to compete and give it everything you have. Just try to keep making pitches.”

Though Flaherty didn’t help himself with four walks, the defense behind him also struggled. In the third inning, Mookie Betts had a ball clank off his glove as he ran back near the wall trying to make a leaping grab. Two batters later, the Dodgers had a chance to turn an inning-ending double play, but Miguel Rojas couldn’t field the ball cleanly, instead settling for a fielder’s choice.

Those miscues allowed the Braves to extend the inning and the Dodgers paid the price as Orlando Arcia hit a bases-clearing double to give the Braves a three-run lead.

“You win a lot of ballgames with pitching. But you've also got to hit, got to play defense,” Betts said. “It does suck, but that's no excuse. It's no excuse. We just haven't been playing good baseball by any means."

It was yet another short outing for a Dodgers starter, which has been the theme as the club deals with numerous injuries to the top members of its rotation. Behind Flaherty, the Dodgers’ bullpen struggled, particularly in a six-run sixth inning that was capped off by a Matt Olson bases-clearing double off Evan Phillips.

“We have to have better pitching. We do,” Roberts said. “I do believe that the last two nights -- Landon [Knack] has been very good for us, Jack has clearly been very good for us and this entire year for himself. So on the heels of back-to-back bad outings -- we’ve got to get length. [The bullpen] can’t cover five, six, seven innings a night. You’ve got to be able to chew up some outs.”

With the latest sloppy play, the Dodgers will have to battle through positioning in the National League postseason picture. The Brewers are one game behind the Dodgers for the second seed in the NL, which would cost Los Angeles a first-round bye if they’re overtaken by Milwaukee.

In the NL West, the Dodgers still have a comfortable three-and-a-half-game lead over the Padres with just 14 games left in the regular season. Still, the Dodgers know they need to play much better moving forward.

“I know that teams are looming,” Roberts said. “I’m more focused on how we can play better baseball. We still, what do they say -- control your own destiny. We have to play better baseball. But those teams aren’t going away.”