As Don Mattingly remembers it, the Los Angeles Dodgers swept four games in St. Louis in August 2011. Actually, it was three games, but the victories were emphatic: the Dodgers won by a combined score of 24-7, leaving the Cardinals 10 1/2 games out of a playoff spot.  These days, Mattingly said, he thinks of that series a lot. For Mattingly, the Dodgers’ manager, the Cardinals’ late surge to the title last season gives hope for his own team’s playoff push.  “I’m thinking, ‘There’s no chance, these guys are done,’ and next thing you know, two weeks later, they’ve caught fire and rolled right through it all,” Mattingly said Saturday in the visitors’ dugout at AT&T Park. “We’ve got to get on that roll. We’ve shown no indication of it to this point, but that roll, when’s it start? Is it today?”  Maybe it was. After losing the series opener Friday, the Dodgers nipped the Giants on Saturday, 3-2, moving back within four and a half games of the lead in the National League West. Adrian Gonzalez tripled to lead off the ninth inning and scored the tiebreaking run on a double by Hanley Ramirez.  “We’re getting there,” Gonzalez said. “I don’t know about winning the division, but I know we’re getting into the playoffs one way or the other.”  A playoff spot seemed much more certain on Aug. 25, when the Dodgers acquired Gonzalez, Josh Beckett and the injured Carl Crawford in a trade with Boston. But three days later, the star center fielder Matt Kemp slammed into a wall in Colorado, injuring his left shoulder.  Kemp went 3 for 30 trying to play through the pain. He said it hurt to finish high in his swing, the way he usually does. Now he is out until at least Tuesday after having a dye-contrast magnetic resonance imaging exam on his left shoulder Saturday. He said the tests showed inflammation.  “I was telling myself to just push it through these next 20-something games and see where we end,” Kemp said. “But as of right now, the way my shoulder feels, I wouldn’t really do too much good.”  With Kemp compromised and Gonzalez hitting .228 for the Dodgers before the triple, the team is just 6-8 since the Red Sox deal. Beckett has lost two of his three starts, with a 3.86 earned run average.  For Beckett, that is an improvement over his ugly performance in Boston, where he was 5-11 with a 5.23 E.R.A. He pitched well Friday, keeping his pitches down, with late life. But he still gave up four runs and lost.  “I’ve got to pitch better,” Beckett said.  It was Beckett’s first appearance here since the 2007 All-Star Game, which he won. He was at the top of his game then, between World Series titles, when there was no better clutch pitcher. The Dodgers hope enough of the old Beckett remains to justify the $31.5 million they owe him for the next two seasons.  Beckett, whose first championship came for the wild-card Marlins in 2003, acknowledged Friday that the Dodgers’ focus should simply be to reach the postseason, even if they do it as a wild card.  This year, of course, there will be a one-game playoff between two wild-card teams, the winner advancing to the division series. With the N.L. West slipping away, that might be the Dodgers’ only ticket. They understand it would be a risky path.  “Of course we don’t want to fool with that wild card,” Kemp said. “We want to win the National League West. That’s our goal. We can’t really worry about too much except the team that’s in front of us, and that’s the Giants.”  The Dodgers did not expect to be peeking at the wild-card standings this soon. (They were a game behind St. Louis for the second spot before the Cardinals played Milwaukee on Saturday night.) The Dodgers’ pitching staff has the third-lowest E.R.A. in the league, at 3.47, and trades for Ramirez, Shane Victorino and Gonzalez deepened their lineup.  So far, though, it is taking a while for all the new pieces to fit.  “I really didn’t think so, because it’s not like football or basketball, where you’re learning new plays,” said Mark Ellis, a veteran second baseman. “It’s baseball — you go out there and you play and try to get hits. But maybe there’s something to that. Maybe there’s something about jelling as a team. It’s hard to say. So far we haven’t strung things together offensively like it says on paper that we should.”  Losing Kemp will only make it tougher. At a different point in the season, Mattingly said, the Dodgers would have probably placed Kemp on the 15-day disabled list. But with expanded rosters, he remains active, hoping Saturday’s cortisone shot will help.  Even without Kemp, Mattingly said, the Dodgers’ reinforced lineup should have enough talent to get by. But for the team to reach the postseason, the adjustment period must end.  “There’s no reason we can’t go out and start winning games and it’ll come together,” Mattingly said. “Could it take time? It could, but I don’t think we can look at it like that. We don’t have time.”
For Los Angelesâ manager Don Mattingly, the struggling Dodgers can learn from last yearâs Cardinals, whose late-season surge resulted in a title for St. Louis.