Will Smith followed with a two-run double to left for a 7-0 lead. Mets reliever Grant Hartwig walked Max Muncy before recording two outs, but Pages crushed a 413-foot homer to center to make it 10-0.

The Dodgers went five for seven with runners in scoring position in the fifth inning and five for 11 in the game, and they struck out only five times , their ability to hit in the clutch and to make more consistent contact reversing two troubling trends.

The Dodgers entered Sunday ranked among baseball’s top five teams in batting average, on-base-plus-slugging percentage, home runs and walks, but they were also tied with the Boston Red Sox for the league lead with 221 strikeouts.

They also had a .244 average (55 for 255) with runners in scoring position and a .130 average (three for 23) with the bases loaded, their 69 strikeouts with runners in scoring position and 12 whiffs with the bases loaded — six of them coming in Saturday’s 6-4 loss to the Mets — leading the league.

The whiffs put a considerable drag on an offense that was expected to be among the most lethal in baseball.

“With certain guys, it’s been ... yeah, ‘drag’ is a good word,” Roberts said before the game. “Right now, it’s a little problematic. I think that strikeouts are gonna happen, but … then you start to layer in the strikeout with runners in scoring position, where you just gotta move the ball forward. And so for me, that’s something that has to get better.”

One common thread in the team’s failure to hit with runners in scoring position, Roberts said, was that batters were often falling behind in counts.

“You’re behind 0-1, and essentially, there’s a panic at some point, right?” Roberts said. “And then we’re not making contact. This is not everyone. But I think the best hitters are typically the best hitters with runners in scoring position. There’s a parallel. If you’re not a good hitter, then you’re typically not very good with runners in scoring position.”

Short hops

Left-hander James Paxton and right-handers Landon Knack and Yoshinobu Yamamoto are scheduled to start a three-game series beginning Tuesday in Washington, which will give Paxton, who pitched better with extra rest for Boston last season, eight days between starts and Yamamoto, who pitched once a week in Japan, five days between starts. … Walker Buehler, who is recovering from a second Tommy John surgery, will make his fifth minor league rehabilitation start — this one for triple-A Oklahoma City — on Wednesday in Albuquerque.

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