Can Chris Hatcher’s turnaround cure the Dodgers’ postseason bullpen woes?

As his season was spiraling from a messy start into injury, the Dodgers’ bridge to the ninth inning, Chris Hatcher, decided to call his father.

Dennis Hatcher played football, not baseball, and Chris Hatcher usually bristles when his father tries to give him baseball advice. But this time, he wasn’t feeling right.

Although he felt he wasn’t making terrible pitches, Hatcher was getting bombarded. Before he hit the 60-day disabled list on June 17 with a strained muscle in his side, he had an earned-run average of 6.38 in 27 appearances. He was 1-4 and, on several occasions, had cost the Dodgers a game.

“It felt like every ball that was put in play was a hit,” Hatcher said.

In last season’s playoffs the Dodgers were sunk partly by a fickle, unreliable bullpen. This season will probably not be different without a setup man worthy of trust. And, Hatcher said, he probably wouldn’t be in the position to fill that role without the phone call to his father.

“He said, ‘Well, go back to your old attitude,’ ” Hatcher recalled. “I was like, ‘What are you talking about?’ ”

Hatcher’s father tried to capture his old approach succinctly.

“You always told me, ‘Screw it,’ ” he said. “You know?”

Hatcher had decided call his father because, as he was rehabbing, he felt uneasy and wracked with stress. He was living and dying on each pitch, he said.

And Hatcher’s feeling that every batted ball was finding a hole was rather accurate. Batters were hitting .368 on balls in play, indicating a run of bad luck.

Hatcher said he found himself getting angry about the outcome “instead of being focused on the actual pitch I was throwing.”

The rehabilitation gave Hatcher time to reevaluate, to “look in the mirror.” He returned with a sharper splitter, some better luck and a mellower approach.

Since coming off the disabled list on Aug. 15, he has compiled a 1.31 ERA in 22 games. He has stranded 100% of runners on base: all three runs he’s given up have come on solo home runs. Batters are hitting .227 on balls in play.

Hatcher has locked down the eighth inning, and has been a reason Manager Don Mattingly said he feels “really good about our pen.”

Hatcher is taking that in stride.

“Whatever happens, happens,” he said. “I’ve put myself in a position to succeed, and if I just focus on making a good pitch, and if things don’t go my way, so what? Just get the next guy.”

Follow Zach Helfand on Twitter @zhelfand