LOS ANGELES — A week ago, the Dodgers finally seemed to be reaching their long-elusive ceiling.

They had won nine of their first 10 postseason games. They were coupling historic starting pitching with opportunistic offense and just enough production out of the bullpen. They were seen as heavy World Series favorites against the Toronto Blue Jays.

Then, as has happened so often this season, a confounding moment of adversity struck.

Over this Fall Classic, their once-overlooked offensive worries escalated into full-blown panic alarms. In their previous 20 innings entering Game 5, the Dodgers scored just three times.

The pressure reached a tipping point Wednesday, when the Dodgers announced a notable shake-up to their lineup. Slumping shortstop Mookie Betts was dropped from second to third in the batting order, with Will Smith moving up to hit behind Shohei Ohtani. Andy Pages was also dropped to the bench after struggling mightily as the team’s No. 9 hitter, replaced by the more contact-minded Alex Call in a rearranged Dodgers outfield.

The hope was that the new-look lineup could be coupled with a refined offensive approach. As first baseman Freddie Freeman insisted pregame, an offense that had been inconsistent for much of the season had managed to rebound from such trials before.

“We have faced so much adversity throughout the course of this year that we’re ready for it,” Freeman said. “Hopefully, as an offense, we can bounce back and put up better at-bats and get going. Because that’s who we are.”

On second thought, maybe they simply aren’t.

In a 6-1 loss to the Blue Jays that gave Toronto a 3-2 lead in this series, the Dodgers showed a different, deflating, and yet all too familiar identity at the plate.

In scoring just one run while striking out 12 times over seven dazzling innings from Blue Jays rookie Trey Yesavage, the defending champions looked passive, uncertain and unable to adjust.

It was all the worst traits the Dodgers had flashed at times during their difficult regular season, once again rearing their ugly head at precisely the wrong time.

Now, this World Series will head back to Toronto for Game 6 on Friday, with the Blue Jays just one win away from a stunning Fall Classic upset and unlikely third-franchise title. The Dodgers, meanwhile, face the dread of elimination, entering Thursday’s off-day in a frantic search to make things right.

Wednesday’s game went off the rails from the start for the Dodgers, who found themselves in a hole after just three pitches.

Back in Game 1, their staff ace, Blake Snell, had struggled to command his fastball in the zone en route to a choppy five-inning, five-run start. So, in Game 5, he tried to dial in his heater early — only to be punished with the first back-to-back leadoff home runs in World Series history.

His first pitch was an elevated four-seamer that Davis Schneider ambushed for a home run to left. His next two were inner-half fastballs to Vladimir Guerrero Jr., with the Blue Jays star taking the first for a strike before hooking the second inside the left-field foul pole.

From there, the rest of Snell’s day was a grind for other reasons. Twice, his infield failed to turn double-plays behind him, resulting in extra pitches. In the fourth, Teoscar Hernández came up empty on an over-aggressive and ill-advised sliding attempt down the right-field line, playing a Daulton Varsho line drive into a triple that set up a sacrifice fly.

The final blow came in the seventh, when Snell turned a two-on, two-out jam over to the bullpen after 116 pitches. Edgardo Henriquez promptly let both inherited runners score.

Snell’s final line: 6 2/3 innings, five runs, six hits, four walks and seven strikeouts.

Most nights, that would make him the scapegoat. But given the Dodgers’ offense Wednesday, even a good outing wouldn’t have been enough.

Despite the lineup alterations, and the urgency that Freeman preached in his pregame media session, the Dodgers experienced yet another dud.

In their second game this series against Yesavage and his MLB-high seven-foot-tall release point, the team’s game plan was to try to be patient and wait the 22-year-old rookie out. They figured Yesavage would try to get chase with his splitter below the zone. They emphasized the need to lay off the low stuff, and force Yesavage into the zone, then attack any mistakes he left over the plate.

Yesavage, however, turned the Dodgers’ patience against them. He landed his late-breaking splitter in the zone early in counts, flashing much better feel for his signature pitch than he had in Game 1, when he threw it only 10 times. That helped him keep the Dodgers on the back foot, as he threw only three (three!) of his 104 pitches in a hitters’ count of 2-and-0, 2-and-1, 3-and-0 or 3-and-1 — leaving the Dodgers few opportunities to take confident, convicted swings.

Yesavage’s dominance was amplified by a unique slider featuring sharp downward break and virtually unheard-of movement toward his armside (as opposed to the normal gloveside action the pitch typically generates from less extreme arm slots).

Between his slider and splitter, he got 21 whiffs on 39 swings, helping him rack up a rookie World Series record 12 strikeouts.

He made one mistake (on one of those rare hitters’ count pitches) to Kiké Hernández in the bottom of the third, throwing a fastball in the zone that was hit for a solo homer.

After that, however, the only two other hits he allowed were infield singles by Teoscar Hernández. On the night, the Dodgers took one at-bat with a runner in scoring position (in the fourth, after Yesavage also plunked Freeman with a pitch), and promptly saw Tommy Edman pop out.

There were other separates in this game, like the Blue Jays’ defense (highlighted by a diving catch from Addison Barger on a 117-mph Shohei Ohtani line drive in the sixth) and their lockdown bullpen (which followed Yesavage with two scoreless innings, while Dodgers left-hander Anthony Banda yielded another run in the eighth).

Ultimately, though, the story was simple.

The Dodgers couldn’t hit. The inconsistencies that plagued them during the second half of the season returned in full force. And now, they head back to Toronto in a position that felt unthinkable after their 18-inning win in Game 3 — requiring back-to-back road victories to defend their World Series title.

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