The game stayed tight into the seventh, when the Dodgers finally broke through against the Mets bullpen. Tucker and Teoscar Hernández opened the inning with back-to-back singles off Brooks Raley, and after Dalton Rushing reached on a fielder's choice that cut down Tucker at the plate, Shohei Ohtani lifted a sacrifice fly to score Hernández and put Los Angeles ahead 2-1.

Freeman kept the pressure on in the eighth, singling and stealing second before Kyle Tucker made the Mets pay. His two-run homer to right-center landed in the Mets bullpen, his eighth of the year, and pushed the lead to 4-1. Tucker’s bat had effectively put the game out of reach, even after Francisco Alvarez answered with a solo shot in the bottom of the inning to make it 4-2.

Evan Phillips gave up that run in relief of Sasaki, but Tanner Scott closed it out with a scoreless ninth for his 16th save.

The Dodgers had chances to add more. Ohtani doubled and was thrown out trying to stretch it into a triple in the fifth, and Andy Pages tripled in the ninth but was stranded when Tommy Edman struck out to end it.

Freeman finished 2-for-4 with a run scored, Ohtani had two hits and an RBI, and Tucker drove in two on his two hits, including the go-ahead swing. Sasaki's nine strikeouts matched a season high, and he's now allowed one run or fewer in four of his last six starts, a stretch that's steadied his ERA at 4.71 after a rocky stretch earlier this year.

The win gives the Dodgers the opener of a three-game set against the Mets, riding a series victory over the Phillies into New York. Yoshinobu Yamamoto is set to take the mound Friday opposite Nolan McLean, with first pitch from Citi Field scheduled for 4:15 p.m. PT.