Edwin Diaz has been here before, and so have the fans booing him on the way off the mound. A week after admitting his slider needed fixing following a blown save against Arizona, Diaz blew another one Thursday night, this time against the first-place Milwaukee Brewers, and left Dodger Stadium to a loud chorus of jeers from a crowd of 46,105. This time, he wasn’t pointing to a single pitch as the problem. He was just trying to stay level-headed.

“I’m just trying to be positive,” said Edwin Diaz, per Sportsnet LA. “Today was a tough one, so I’m gonna go home, see some video, and try to get better tomorrow.”

The Dodgers signed Diaz to a three-year, $69 million deal last December, fresh off a 1.63 ERA season in which he converted 28 of 31 save chances for the Mets. That version of Diaz has been almost entirely absent in Los Angeles. His ERA sits at 11.57 across just 12.1 innings this season, and Thursday’s collapse marked his third blown save in his past four appearances, two of them coming in Arizona the week before.

The game itself carried real weight beyond one bad inning. Entering Thursday, the Dodgers, Brewers, and Atlanta Braves were all within a game of each other atop the National League, with the top two seeds earning a bye into the Wild Card round. Dave Roberts managed the game accordingly, making aggressive moves throughout, but it unraveled late anyway.

Roki Sasaki struggled early, walking three and allowing two runs in a bases-loaded jam in the fourth inning that put Milwaukee up 2-0. The Dodgers answered with an RBI single from Ben Rortvedt and a three-run homer from Max Muncy, putting Los Angeles ahead 4-2 and setting up Diaz to close it out in the ninth.

He didn’t. Diaz struck out Contreras for the first out, then allowed back-to-back singles to Joey Ortiz and David Hamilton on fastballs that caught too much of the plate, putting runners on the corners. Jackson Chourio and Garrett Mitchell followed with hits off sliders on the edges of the zone, tying the game at 4-4. Diaz struck out Gary Sanchez for the second out before Roberts turned to Alex Vesia, who gave up the go-ahead single to Jake Bauers. The Dodgers lost 5-4.

Diaz pointed to his fastball afterward, not his slider this time.

“I think my fastball command today – I was throwing strikes, but right in the middle,” Diaz reportedly said. “Every big league hitter can hit it right in the middle, (even if you) throw 200 miles an hour. I gotta get better at that.”

Diaz isn’t the only source of the Dodgers’ late-inning trouble. The bullpen carries a 4.71 ERA since the start of July, 23rd in the majors, and Thursday’s loss came on the heels of an eight-losses-in-nine-games stretch before the team swept Kansas City. That broader instability is exactly what’s fueling the question hanging over Roberts right now.

Dave Roberts expresses frustration after losing rally in ninth

With the postseason less than two months away, the Los Angeles Dodgers are on a slippery slope. Already facing injury setbacks with Shohei Ohtani and Dalton Rushing, Edwin Diaz’s continuous blown saves are adding more problems to Dave Roberts’ plate. After Diaz blew his third save in a week, speculation about whether Diaz should continue in his closer role arose. When reporters asked Roberts the same questions, the manager lost his usual cool.

“Give me another option,” Roberts snapped, per The Orange County Register. “I can’t just say change (and use Diaz) in lower leverage; I have to have other options. And to be quite honest, none of those guys really are throwing the baseball great. So that’s just kind of the way it is. We’ve got to get other guys on track to even have that be even a valid conversation to be honest with you.”

That frustration extended to how Thursday’s bullpen was actually managed. Roberts used Tanner Scott, the reliever who converted 16 of 18 save chances while filling in for an injured Diaz earlier this season, for just one out in the eighth inning rather than letting him pitch the ninth, a decision that looked worse once the game slipped away. Scott returned from that fill-in stretch as arguably the Dodgers’ most reliable option, yet Roberts chose to reinstate Diaz in the closer’s role once he was healthy again at the end of July.