The Dodgers came into last night having scored just 6 runs amidst a 4-game losing streak, but when Shohei Ohtani hit the 3rd pitch of the game out of the park, it looked like things were poised to turn around.
And, then, they didn’t!
The next 3 hitters, Mookie Betts, Freddie Freeman, and Andy Pages all struck out, and that was a sign of things to come as the Dodgers never dented home plate again.
Offense
The Offense has been covered at length. Ohtani has been mortal in the last month, Betts has been a great player overall, but not as much offensively and Freddie is not hitting home runs.
Teo either hasn’t been healthy or hasn’t been the Teo we’ve come to love, and the same goes for Edman, and no one knows what the ultimate status of Max Muncy is going to be.
Andy Pages had been smokin’ hot, but he went 0-4 last night in the 4-hole with 2 Ks, and he’s hitting just .167 in the last 7 games.
Baseball is a game of Ebbs and Flows, and you never want to make too much out of any one small sample size, but the offensive woes are real issues. The sample size for Mookie is all year, the lack of power for Freddie is approaching 200 at-bats, and Muncy might be out indefinitely. We knew Andy Pages wasn’t going to stay as hot as he has been for the last couple of months, so while no one is going to panic, for sure, they do need to be concerned, IMO.
Miguel Rojas doesn’t need to be an everyday player because he likely won’t last through that rigor, and playing every day means you have to hit against every pitcher, not just in the best matchups.
Struggling
So, the Dodgers are struggling, there’s no sugarcoating that, but last night, give the Brewers pitchers credit. Misiorowski was “As Advertised”. The 23-year-old out of Blue Springs, a Kansas City suburb, touched 101.3 and SAT 99.3.
I mean, WOW!
He also threw strikes! In fact, he landed his fastball in zone 69% of the time, his curveball 63%, and overall had a 59% in zone rate. When a pitcher has a 4-pitch mix, highlighted by a fastball that sits right at 100 mph, with spin of OVER 2700 RPMs, and throws strikes with basically every pitch type, just tip your cap.
When asked if last night was a game in which you have to tip your cap, here’s what Dave Roberts had to say.
I think so. You know, it never feels good when you lose 5 in a row, but today was a day in which it didn’t matter who they had out there; they were really good. So, you try and wash it off, and fortunately, we have a day game tomorrow, and we’re excited to have Tyler take the mound again, and Ben is back on line, so I think we’re good on the run prevention side of things.
Quintana throws a lot of ground balls, and Tommy will be in there, Teo is a little in between, so we’ll see how that goes, and getting Will back in the lineup will be good too.
And the bullpen arms the Brewers brought in weren’t much easier to hit. Jared Koenig touched almost 100 with spin over 2400, and was in zone almost 70% with his fastball. Abner Uribe sat 97.9, and Trevor Megill, the closer, touched 101.3 and was dropping knuckle curves in as well.
Here’s what Clayton Kershaw had to say about Misiorowski and the Brewers’ pitching.
Well, I know him now, that was super impressive. He was really special, I mean everything. Obviously the velo is great, but he also has 4 pitches, he commands the ball, and I don’t know how you hit that honestly.
The 3 guys that came out of the pen, plus him, I don’t think we saw a fastball under 98 all day. You can talk about us struggling all you want, but this was just a tough game.
I can’t give up any runs, that’s the way it goes.
Kershaw had originally said he didn’t know who Jacob Misiorowski was, but then admitted that he does now.
Kershaw
As for Kershaw, he was sparkling. 6 innings of 2-run ball should be, and has to be, good enough for this offense every day and twice on Sundays. While Misiorowski was pumping in 100-mile-an-hour fastballs, Kershaw sat 90, and the highest whiff rate of any of his pitches was 22%.
Kershaw induced weak contact all night. In fact, combined, the average exit velocity for Milwaukee was 78 MPH, and his slider got hit the hardest, but only had an 84 MPH average exit velocity.
His slider is the pitch that Milwaukee was able to get to in the 4th when they scored their only 2 runs off of Kershaw. After giving up a swinging bunt to Contreras to start the inning, he then gave up a fairly soft opposite-field hit to Jackson Chourio.
That hit by Chourio was the first hit to leave the infield to that point.
He then got Yelich to fly out to left before hanging a slider to Andrew Vaughn who nailed a 2-RBI single into left field.
And, while the Brewers did add one later off of Kirby Yates, the 2-run 4th proved to be all they would need.
Moving Forward
With the loss, the Dodgers are now 56-37, and have seen their lead shrink just a touch to 5 games. The 56-37 mark is the best record in the National League and the second-best record in all of baseball.
Tyler Glasnow makes his return this afternoon, and he’ll be facing Jose Quintana. Game time is 11:05 Pacific.
