In honor of Major League Baseball’s celebration of Roberto Clemente Day on Sunday afternoon, Dodgers manager Dave Roberts called a meeting in the locker room to discuss the Puerto Rican legend’s impact on the sport.

Before the team dispersed about three hours before the first game, the manager, who had been in office for nine years, also gave a farewell message to his players.

Despite all the injuries to their pitching staff, all the questions about the makeup of their roster and the seemingly steep path they face as October approaches, Roberts reminded the room that he still believes.

In the team’s ability to secure the division title in the National League West.

In their chances of a distant, if unconventional, potential run through the play-offs.

And, as he later told reporters, in “the talent that we have, the character that we have.”

“(It) is enough,” he declared, “to win the World Series.”

In their subsequent 9-2 victory over the Atlanta Braves, the Dodgers dramatically lived up to Roberts’s prediction.

Despite entering the night with losses in six of their previous nine games and their lead in the NL West cut to three games by the surging San Diego Padres, the Dodgers managed to get everything in place and claimed a decisive victory at Truist Park.

Walker Buehler struggled with early lead issues in a six-inning, two-run (one earned) and five-strikeout start that was one of the best performances of his tough season.

The lineup overcame an early two-run deficit with the kind of fight that has been lacking at times in recent weeks, highlighted by a pair of RBI doubles from Shohei Ohtani.

With the score tied at 2-2 in the ninth inning, the Dodgers’ other superstars mounted a decisive seven-run rally. The rally included RBI singles by Mookie Betts and Freddie Freeman on an intentional walk for Ohtani with two outs, then three straight home runs by Teoscar Hernández, Tommy Edman and Max Muncy to tie the game.

It was a sigh of relief, a rush of excitement and a possible postseason explanation, all wrapped up in a potentially season-defining performance.

“I wouldn’t say it was the biggest win of the year,” Roberts said, a fair assessment for a club that has wavered between hope and fear during an up-and-down campaign. “But it felt big. Just considering what we’ve been through. Just to see everyone come together.”

The Dodgers haven’t lost confidence of late — they still have the second-best record in the majors (88-61) and are in the top two of the NL playoffs — but their recent personnel losses have taken a toll on the group’s psyche.

The club was already without Clayton Kershaw and Gavin Stone at the start of this road trip, then learned on Saturday that top pitcher Tyler Glasnow will likely miss the rest of the season.

“I think I would be naive if I thought that all the stuff that we’ve been through, especially pitching-wise, doesn’t have an impact on the players,” Roberts said. “It should.”

Meanwhile, the Dodgers also stumbled on the field, allowing the Padres to cut their six-game division lead from a week ago in half before Sunday night’s game began.

“We haven’t been playing well for a week or so, a little bit longer,” Betts said. “It’s hard to keep the confidence.”

Just look at Roberts’ pre-match speech, in which the manager attempted to address the frustrations he had recently noticed within his playing group.

“(He) just gave us confidence, that’s all,” Betts said. “He told us we’re still good. He just gave us the message that we’ve got to keep fighting, keep fighting and things will turn around eventually.”

That message seemed to resonate immediately on the field.

Buehler set the tone first, surviving a 31-pitch, two-run third inning that put the Dodgers within striking distance of an early offense.

The lineup then fought back, culminating in a ninth-inning rally against Braves closer Raisel Iglesias in which all seven runs were scored with two outs (according to ESPN, this was the most runs the Dodgers had scored in a single game with two outs and in the ninth inning).

The Dodgers have a lot of injuries in their pitching staff. Will this lead to Shohei Ohtani becoming a pitching hero in the playoffs?

“I just think there are certain times in a season where it’s a good reminder for the guys to know how good they are,” Roberts said. “But you’ve got to play like that. So I give those guys credit. The coaches did a great job preparing these guys. It was good to play an overall really good baseball game.”

As in other recent losses, the Dodgers threatened to go into a tailspin in the third inning.

After Buehler walked two batters and fouled Austin Barnes (who later left the field with a bruise on the same big toe he broke last month) on the bases, Buehler was called 0-and-2 by Braves first baseman Matt Olson, but he missed the zone with four straight pitches to drive in the night’s first run.

“I thought I made some pitches, just barely, just barely, just barely,” Buehler said. “I just tried not to give in and make the pitches I wanted to make.”

One batter later, it turned out the Dodgers’ defense wasn’t doing him any favors.

While Buehler forced a slow grounder from Braves catcher Travis d’Arnaud, infielder Gavin Lux struggled to get the ball out of his glove during a relay play at second base. He failed to record a single out as another run crossed the plate.

“At some point, everybody on the field and on our team has gotten frustrated with the way I’ve thrown the ball,” Buehler, who entered the night with a 1-5 record and a career-worst 5.95 ERA, said of the inning’s defensive lapses. “So things like that happen. That’s baseball.”

From that moment on, Buehler calmed down and turned the page.

Pitching with what he described as a playoff mentality — “To me, it kind of feels like (the playoffs) right now,” he joked after the game, referring to his uncertain status on a potential postseason roster — the veteran right-handed pitcher, who was tested in October, regained his previous postseason form.

He finished the third inning without further damage.

“It felt like we minimized it in a way,” Buehler said. “Then it started to build a little bit of momentum.”

He then played three more innings without further stress and for the first time since May he played six innings.

“I think tonight I just felt like the misses were what I wanted to do,” Buehler said, downplaying his career-high of five walks in a start he described as a “big step forward for me.”

“Maybe (I missed) too much or too little or whatever,” Buehler added. “But it was in the right place for me, mentally at least. That’s what you want, and that’s why we always talk about feel or command or whatever. It’s not necessarily about throwing every ball in the right place, but doing the right things at the right time and being able to control what the ball does, I think is the biggest thing.”

Shohei Ohtani celebrates his win over the Braves in the seventh inning.

(Jason Allen/Associated Press)

After Ohtani’s two doubles tied the score and reliever Michael Kopech escaped major trouble in the eighth inning, the Dodgers’ weak hitters finally came to life in the ninth.

Will Smith led off the inning with a fly ball that bounced off the high brick wall in right-center for a triple.

Two batters later, Braves manager Brian Snitker made a tough decision: he intentionally walked the left-handed Ohtani, sending Iglesias into a right-on-righty situation against Betts.

“I mean, I don’t blame them,” Betts said. “I wouldn’t throw to him either.”

Unfortunately, just as he did in a similar situation earlier this month against the Angels, Betts struck the decisive blow by hitting a center-cut fastball through the infield for a go-ahead RBI single.

Freeman, the former Braves star, quickly provided some extra security with a two-run single to left.

From that point on, the Dodgers continued to vent their frustrations, hitting two straight home runs for the third time this month.

“This is just one game, and we’ve got to turn the page and prepare for tomorrow,” Betts said. “But it lets us know that we can do it… I think we’ve done a really good job of staying really confident and knowing that we can do it, and keeping the pressure on until we break through.”

It was the same sentiment Roberts expressed before the game; the same mentality the Dodgers will need to weather the storm of injuries that threatens to ruin their October.

“I think it says a lot about our team, the end of that game, and that we didn’t settle for a two-point lead or anything like that and just went for it,” Buehler said. “I think it’s a really big win for us.”