The Dodgers needed a vibe shift on Monday.

And they had to look to someone else besides Tarik Skubal to get it.

In his Dodger Stadium debut on Monday, Skubal grinded through his first start with the team in home colors, giving up three runs in five innings before exiting the game with the Dodgers facing a deficit.

It was not the performance a near-sellout crowd of 51,799 had envisioned, nine days removed from the blockbuster trade that brought the reigning two-time Cy Young Award winner over from the Detroit Tigers.

It was not, as Skubal put it himself afterwards, “up to my standards” either, after he allowed seven baserunners and needed 95 pitches.

But for a Dodgers team that had lost eight of its last nine and was six games under .500 the last month, what mattered most was what followed later: A come-from-behind, hold-on-for-dear-life 6-5 win over the Kansas City Royals to open a pivotal seven-game homestand.

“I thought we fought well,” manager Dave Roberts said, hours after imploring his team to play with more urgency and focus in his pregame address. “Tarik didn’t have his best stuff. You could see the fastball command wasn’t there. But he didn’t relent. He kept going. He gave us what he had for tonight. And it was just good to see our offense really bear down.”

“I saw that urgency tonight,” Roberts added, “which we gotta build on from here on out.”

Entering the night, all eyes were on Skubal. Leading up to first pitch, his mere presence at the ballpark instantly energized Chavez Ravine.

The left-hander got a nice ovation when he emerged from the dugout to begin his pregame warm-up, then several more as he traversed from the outfield to the left-field bullpen.

“It felt like there was 40,000-50,000 [fans here], 40 minutes before the game, in their seats,” Skubal said. “When I walked out there, that was so special.”

Hours before that, Roberts had only added to the billing, describing a pregame “buzz in the clubhouse” while predicting it was “gonna be an electric night.”

Instead, as soon as the beats to Skubal’s entrance song –– “Holy Grail” by Jay-Z –– stopped thumping at game time, the 29-year-old struggled to find a rhythm in his second Dodgers start.

He gave up one run three batters into the game, after a pair of singles were sandwiched around a stolen base. He faced more traffic in the second and third innings, lacking command as he grew outwardly frustrated with his stuff.

“I kinda sprayed the ball a little bit,” he said. “That’s kinda unusual for me, especially with fastball command and stuff like that.”

Still, the night might have been different if not for one mistake pitch with two outs (and two strikes) in the third inning –– when, with a chance to put Royals slugger Jac Caglianone away, Skubal instead hung a slider that was launched out to right for a two-run homer.

“I do think that first home start, there’s some emotions that bleed into it,” Roberts said, sensing an “overexertion” from his newest staff ace. “I think we’re going to see a different guy as far as performance [in his next start] on Sunday.”

For the rest of Monday, Skubal was better, finishing with six strikeouts and no further hits allowed.

But, he failed to pitch into the sixth for the only the fourth time in 18 starts this year because of a high pitch count and more command problems in the fifth, when he hit a batter and walked another with two outs.

And at the time of his exit, the Dodgers were down 3-2, having managed a two-run third-inning rally but nothing more against Royals left-hander Noah Cameron.

“I thought I competed well and gave our team a chance to win,” he said, before later adding: “But I’ll be better going forward.”

For one night, the Dodgers could live without that –– eventually turning the game thanks to a big swing from Max Muncy and some aggressive base-running from Shohei Ohtani.

With the bases loaded and two outs in the sixth, Muncy came up and christened his bobblehead night with a three-run double that snuck just inside the right-field line; setting off a raucous scene at Dodger Stadium that culminated with loud chants of “Mun-cy! Mun-cy!” well after the inning had ended.

The Dodgers’ lead would last only three batters, with Jack Dreyer yielding a game-tying two-run homer in the top of the seventh.

However, the Dodgers would battle back again, thanks to a leadoff single and stolen base from Ohtani in the seventh (only his seventh steal all season, and first since May 16) that set up Freddie Freeman for an RBI single (his third hit and second RBI of the night).

“It felt like the fans were trying to will us to win tonight,” Freeman noted.

Electric scenes after all, just later than expected.

The rest of the way, the Dodgers held on. Tanner Scott worked around an eighth-inning walk by getting a double-play grounder. Then struggling closer Edwin Díaz worked a scoreless ninth for only his second save in four tries since coming back from injury last month.

In the end, it meant Skubal was back on the field, going through a victorious high-five line for only his second time since joining the team.

By then, it didn’t matter that his home debut was forgettable. Only that, after a couple weeks of mounting frustration, the Dodgers had finally found a way to salvage a win.

“I’m sure all he cares about is winning the game, which we did,” Roberts said of Skubal. “We’re gonna have plenty of time to lean on him and be great.”