James Paxton provided a solid outing and the Dodgers’ offense used a huge fifth inning to beat the Arizona Diamondback, 8-4, on Monday night at Chase Field.

Five pitchers combined to hold the Diamondbacks to only four runs in a 2023 NLDS rematch in Arizona. After Paxton (3-0), Daniel Hudson, Joe Kelly, Alex Vesia and Evan Phillips combined to slow the lineup that gave the Dodgers (19-12) fits last year in the National League Division Series.

Shohei Ohtani, Teoscar Hernandez and Kiké Hernandez all had multi-hit games as the offense tallied 10 hits. 

Here are three takeaways:

Paxton does enough 

Paxton has been a steal at the end of the rotation for this Dodgers team. However, the reliable left-hander had one of his roughest outings of the season, giving up four earned runs. . 

His ERA sits at 3.51 after his five innings of four run baseball. One of his main issues is command however, and on Monday things continued to go negatively in that category. He gave up five walks, and he was able to navigate much of the traffic on the basepaths. 

Bullpen continues to improve

The Dodgers used four relievers to secure a win. Hudson lowered his ERA to 2.77 in his return after a tumultuous 2023, Alex Vesia has navigated a rough start to notch a stunning 1.76 ERA and Evan Phillips has been steady with a 0.71 ERA. 

The Dodgers seem to have their late inning guys set up, but with the way this bullpen has held together, it has been a surprise. We cannot forget that a majority of these players are returning from torrid second half of 2023. 

Smith on hot start 

Will Smith hit his third home run of the season and now sits at a .363 batting average and .943 OPS. While the power numbers are not elite, everything else certainly is and Smith is continuing to put his name into the ring for best hitting catcher in baseball. 

This after he recently signed a 10-year, $140-million contract.

The Dodgers will send right-hander Landon Knack to face Diamondbacks left-hander Jordan Montgomery at 6:40 p.m. Tuesday.