Dodgers: The Dodgers have yet to receive the boosts of their five trade deadline player acquisitions. Over the final two months of the season, they’ll need the reinforcements more urgently than they could have imagined. After an 8-1 road loss to the Padres on Wednesday night — in which Michael Kopech became the first, and to this point only, new Dodger to make his team debut — the Dodgers suddenly find themselves in a compelling division race. Up by as many as nine games in the National League West as recently as last month, the Dodgers’ two-game sweep at the hands of the red-hot Padres this week leaves them just 4 ½ games up in the standings entering August — the narrowest the Dodgers’ division lead has been since May 4. Getting here required a calamity of errors, misfortunes and overall mediocrity from the Dodgers throughout a porous July — posting a losing record in a full month (11-13) for the first time since April 2018. During July, the team ranked just 19th in the majors in total runs (averaging 4.3 per game) and a lowly 27th in staff ERA (5.36). “Overall, the pitching in general, we just haven’t had the effectiveness, the command,” manager Dave Roberts said. “It just puts a lot of stress on the offense.” The continued absences of Mookie Betts, Yoshinobu Yamamoto and Max Muncy didn’t help, either (Freddie Freeman has also missed the last five games on the family emergency list.). Nor did a leaky late-game bullpen and lack of consistent starting pitching. “It’s part of it,” catcher Will Smith said. “We’ll come out of it. No doubt about it. We’re the Dodgers. We’re the best team in baseball.” There were times this year that might have been true. But now, the Dodgers are looking less and less like the best team in their own division. While the Dodgers sputtered, the Padres and defending NL champion Diamondbacks grew increasingly large in the rear-view mirror. The Padres have won nine of their last 10 games, making up four games on the Dodgers in the last eight days alone. The Diamondbacks have been even hotter, going an MLB-best 17-8 in July to sit just 5 ½ games back in third place. Help should arrive for the Dodgers when they play this weekend in Oakland. Jack Flaherty, the centerpiece of the team’s deadline haul, will make his team debut on Saturday. And not even Flaherty’s arrival will solve all the questions facing an injury-ravaged starting rotation — one that Wednesday suffered through one of Clayton Kershaw’s worst career starts. In his second outing back from offseason shoulder surgery, the 36-year-old three-time NL Cy Young Award winner gave up seven runs (three earned) in just 3 2/3 innings. He yielded six hits. He walked a batter and committed a run-scoring defensive error. Most jarringly, he failed to record a strikeout for the first time in his 424 regular-season starts. “There was a lot of things I was missing,” Kershaw said. “Just wasn’t executing. Wasn’t throwing really anything where I wanted to. Frustrating overall.” The left-hander averaged less than 90 mph with his fastball.