LOS ANGELES -- It hasn’t been the season the Dodgers have come to expect out of Justin Turner. The third baseman has struggled at the plate, posting his worst numbers since coming to Los Angeles in 2014. 

Despite Turner’s struggles, manager Dave Roberts continues to insert him into the middle of the lineup. That’s partly because the Dodgers don’t have better options on the active roster. But it’s also because the veteran has a knack for coming up with timely hits.

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Turner came in clutch on Thursday night, launching two homers -- his first since May 18 -- to help the Dodgers open the much-anticipated four-game series against the Padres with a 3-1 win at Dodger Stadium. It was Turner’s 13th career multi-homer game.

“We’ve said it all along that Justin, in big moments [and big spots], he knows how to drive in a run,” Roberts said. “This was a big game, and he rose to the occasion like we’ve seen many times before. Tonight was his night.”

On paper, the Padres had the advantage in the series opener between NL West contenders. San Diego had NL Cy Young Award candidate Joe Musgrove on the mound, while Los Angeles turned to Mitch White, who is in the rotation only because of injuries to Walker Buehler and Andrew Heaney.

But as the Dodgers, who stretched their division lead to 2 1/2 games, have come to know over the last few years, games aren’t won on paper.

White responded by giving the Dodgers another solid start, allowing one run over 4 2/3 innings.

In the fifth, the Padres had the go-ahead run at third base with just one out and Manny Machado at the plate. White turned to his slider in a 3-2 count to get the All-Star third baseman swinging. Justin Bruihl, who played a key role as the bullpen tossed 4 1/3 scoreless frames, struck out Jake Cronenworth to end the threat.

“We’ve been kind of doing the same thing over and over,” White said. “In that situation, we started just spinning sliders below the zone. The last one, 3-2, I was just like I want to challenge him. It worked out well.”

Chris Taylor gets a big assist for the Dodgers’ success on Thursday – literally. In the second inning, the Padres led, 1-0, and were threatening to do more damage in a bases-loaded, one-out situation. Jurickson Profar hit a fly ball to Taylor in right field. Taylor, knowing he had a play at the plate, took one step forward and launched a 96.3 mph strike to get Trent Grisham at home to end the inning.

The 96.3 mph throw from Taylor is the Dodgers’ fastest-tracked outfield assist since the start of the 2020 season. Grisham was coming in with some speed, too, as his 29.1 mph sprint speed was just shy of the 30.0 elite speed threshold. Taylor also threw out Grisham at the plate to end a game during the ’20 season.

“That was really the play of the game,” Turner said. “Apparently he just has a knack for throwing Grisham out at the plate. Have seen him do it a few times now. Big momentum swing for us and keeping it a one-run game, that was huge.”

That gave Turner enough time to get to Musgrove, who allowed five hits on Thursday, three of them to Turner. The first homer for Turner off Musgrove came in the second inning, a solo blast to left-center field off a four-seam fastball. In the seventh, after Max Muncy drew a one-out walk, Turner turned on a cutter that stayed in the middle of the plate, launching it 404 feet, over Grisham’s head in right-center field.

The last two times Turner hit multiple homers against the same pitcher, it came against current teammates Tyler Anderson and Heaney. He also hit two homers off current teammate Danny Duffy in 2017.

“That’s as good of a swing as I’ve seen him take this year, going to the big part of the field, late at night, and for a home run,” Roberts said of Turner’s second homer of the night. “He’s been trending in the right direction for quite some time, in my opinion.”

The hype around Dodgers-Padres isn’t as big as it was last season. But through three months, both teams have shown they have plenty of talent to battle each other all summer long and into the fall. The Dodgers took the first round in the four-game series. 

“It was a big win for us,” Taylor said. “Obviously J.T. came up huge at the plate with a couple homers and put the team on his back a little bit there.”