LOS ANGELES ― The Dodgers have established a clubhouse tradition of celebrating career milestones with postgame toasts. This year has featured several: Clayton Kershaw’s 200th win, Freddie Freeman’s 2,000th hit, the 300th career home runs by Freeman and J.D. Martinez.

No players achieved any landmark milestones in the Dodgers’ 5-2 win over the Pittsburgh Pirates on Monday. It was, however, the 700th career win for manager Dave Roberts. There was no champagne waiting for him in the clubhouse, but the players recognized the significance of the win even before Roberts recognized it himself.

“Muncy and a couple guys came through the line and said congratulations,” Roberts said. “I had no idea what they were talking about until I got to the office. I certainly had no idea. I’m just happy to win a baseball game.”

The Dodgers had limped home on the heels of back-to-back losses to the woebegone Kansas City Royals, having lost their best pitcher to a shoulder injury earlier in the day. The comforts of home offered a noticeable salve.

Muncy hit his 18th home run of the season in a two-hit game. David Peralta and Miguel Rojas also had two hits apiece, and a serviceable start from Michael Grove got the Dodgers back in the win column before an announced crowd of 49,652 at Dodger Stadium.

“It felt like a very long road trip for everybody,” Muncy said. “All the rain delays, getting into Kansas City at 6 in the morning. It just felt like a really long trip. To get back home, see your family, this clubhouse felt rejuvenating for a lot of guys. We played a pretty good game.”

Grove allowed one run over four innings, facing the Pirates’ starting lineup twice before turning the game over to the bullpen with a 3-1 lead. Caleb Ferguson (5-3) was credited with the win after pitching a scoreless fifth.

After being notified a day earlier that he was likely to take the place of Clayton Kershaw, who was placed on the 15-day injured list Monday, Grove wasn’t sharp but he got the job done. He pitched around five hits, two walks and a hit batter.

“I was fighting it a little bit,” he said. “I didn’t get in sync necessarily, but I was trying to make a pitch when I needed to. When the traffic happened, I was trying to get one pitch at a time, one batter at a time.”

With the infield drawn in and a runner (Carlos Santana) at third base in the second inning, Grove got Nick Gonzales to hit a ground ball right at Rojas. The shortstop threw quickly to home plate, in time to cut down Santana and keep the game scoreless.

Grove did not help his own cause when he made an unwise throw to first base later in the inning. Rather than holding on to a swinging-bunt ground ball halfway up the first-base line off the bat of Rodolfo Castro, he threw off-line to Freeman at first base. Gonzales scampered all the way from first to third, then scored on a single by Jared Triolo.

The Dodgers rattled off five unanswered runs against right-hander Mitch Keller (9-4). Muncy broke open the scoring with his solo home run in the second inning. Later that inning, Peralta doubled and scored on a Jason Heyward grounder that got past Santana at first base.

With two outs in the fourth inning, Keller hit Miguel Vargas with a 93-mph sinker, then served up an RBI double to Rojas.

Freeman and Smith led off the fifth inning with a pair of singles, and another two-out rally led to two more runs. Peralta poked a single into left field to score Freeman. Heyward hit a soft line drive in Santana’s direction, but the first baseman simply missed it, allowing Smith to score.

The nine innings were a sharp contrast to the two losses in Kansas City, where the Royals seemed to make fewer mistakes than the Dodgers (47-37) despite boasting the second-worst record in MLB.

“Those teams that play fearless and kind of reckless have been our hump in the road,” Rojas said. “It’s been Kansas City, the Diamondbacks earlier in the year, I think Cincinnati did it as well. They’re beating us on the bases without hitting extra bases, or longballs. When we play those teams we need to come out a little bit with expectations that they’re going to do that, and be ready for that rather than reacting when they start running the bases like that.

“We’re ready for this team right now. Hopefully we get better results.”

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