Red-hot Red Sox light up Emmet Sheehan to complete sweep of Dodgers in front of Tarik Skubal

Tarik Skubal made his first appearance in the Los Angeles dugout on Sunday.

The Dodgers could have used him on the mound. They suffered an 8-4 defeat to cap a three-game sweep at home at the hands of the red-hot Red Sox.

While the winning end of a sweep means considerably more for the Red Sox than losing does for the Dodgers, the result put a slight damper on Dodger Stadium amid the jubilation of the Skubal acquisition.

And it signaled what could be the beginning of the end of Emmet Sheehan's time in the Dodgers' rotation.

Skubal in … is Sheehan out?

Skubal was on hand to witness the loss in his first public appearance with the Dodgers since being traded from the Detroit Tigers on Saturday night. He sported a Dodger blue hoodie and cap while sharing an embrace with his new manager, Dave Roberts, in the dugout.

Things on the field quickly shifted in Boston's favor. The Red Sox tagged Sheehan for two runs in the top of the first inning.

When the Dodgers responded with three runs in the second, the Red Sox hit back with three more in the third courtesy of three solo home runs by Ceddanne Rafaela, Wilyer Abreu and Masataka Yoshida.

All three came off of Sheehan, and Yoshida's ended his day at 2 2/3 innings with 5 earned runs allowed. The Red Sox didn't trail again.

The outing inflated Sheehan's ERA to 5.29 for the season. In a stacked rotation that now features a two-time Cy Young winner in Skubal at the top, Sheehan's time as a regular starter might be coming to a close. And even if he continues to pitch in the regular season, Sheehan now looks like an obvious cut for the projected postseason rotation.

"When you're pitching in big-league games, you've got to get guys out," Roberts told reporters after the game of Sheehan's performance, per The Athletic's Fabian Ardaya. "I don't know where we go from here."

The Dodgers are just fine

The sweep did little to hurt the Dodgers in the standings. They dropped to 69-43, a half-game behind the Milwaukee Brewers for the best record in baseball. They hold a 10-game lead over the second-place Arizona Diamondbacks in the NL West.

The Dodgers are basically playing the rest of the regular season for home-field advantage in a hypothetical NLCS against the Brewers. Skubal's arrival improves those chances. He'll make his first start Tuesday against the Chicago Cubs.

Red Sox dreaming of an October rematch

As for the Red Sox, they're now 23-3 since July 23 and have turned a once-disastrous season into a 60-51 campaign with comfortable positioning as the No. 2 team in the AL wild-card standings. They just swept the best team in baseball on the road by scores of 9-4, 3-2 and 8-4.

It's the type of effort that has Red Sox fans dreaming of a miracle rally from a 32-46 start to a rematch against the Dodgers in the World Series.