LOS ANGELES -- After taking a fastball to the knee on Monday and being held out of Tuesday’s game, Cody Bellinger was back in the Dodgers’ starting lineup on Wednesday vs. the Reds, batting second and playing first base. He went 1-for-3 with a single and a walk.

“We’re gonna put him at first base so he doesn’t have to do as much running,” Dodgers manager Dave Roberts said before the game. “But yesterday, he was available to pinch-hit. [He] said he felt good this morning, and so we’re gonna run him out there. I know when you’re swinging the bat well like he is, he doesn’t want to miss too many games.”

To say Bellinger is swinging the bat well is something of an understatement. In 18 games going into Wednesday, he led Major League Baseball in average (.433), slugging (.925), OPS (1.438) and hits (29), and he led the National League in on-base percentage (.513) and home runs (nine).

Justin Turner and Corey Seager, meanwhile, did not start on Wednesday, but the Dodgers expect to have both back in the lineup for Thursday’s series opener in Milwaukee. In Turner’s case, the team is practicing an abundance of caution as the third baseman copes with a minor hamstring ailment.

“Justin could’ve played today,” Roberts said. “He’s probably not too happy with me right now. But I think that with four in Milwaukee -- then we have an off-day -- so to kind of nip it, I think it just makes sense to give him an extra day. … JT’ll be fine.”

With a left-hander on the mound, Turner came in to pinch-hit for Joc Pederson in the eighth inning and struck out.

For Seager, it was a planned day off, but Roberts said he was available to pinch-hit. Seager didn’t get any at-bats, but he did enter the game playing shortstop for the ninth inning.

“I think that the last couple days, he’s really starting to find his swing,” Roberts said. “And I thought yesterday, he took some really good at-bats. Just playing seven in a row, I think it made sense for his body, so we can keep that body strong and his mind clear. He’ll play the next four in Milwaukee, but he’ll be available today off the bench. I think that Corey is definitely trending in the right direction.”

Seager, who underwent both Tommy John surgery and hip surgery in 2018, hasn’t quite regained the form of his first two seasons, batting .254/.359/.418 through 19 games. To Roberts, some of that is a matter of getting back into the routine of playing every day, though Roberts noted that there may also be some mechanical issues.

“There are subtleties that are not the same [with Seager’s swing],” Roberts said. “I say that because with Corey, the hip, the elbow, there was essentially a body transformation. And so his body is moving differently, it’s acting differently. That kind of bleeds into his mechanics, so he was doing things to compensate for how he was feeling. … There’s a new normal that he’s trying to work through.”