Dodgers still can’t figure out Brewers’ pitchers

LOS ANGELES — Before Friday night’s game, Dodgers manager Dave Roberts praised the Milwaukee Brewers, particularly for the strength of their pitching and defense.

“It’s just hard to score against this team,” Roberts said.

He has no reason to think otherwise.

The Dodgers returned from the All-Star break and were held to three hits in a 2-0 loss to those Brewers.

It was their fourth loss to the Brewers in the past 11 days. They have scored a total of four runs in those matchups with the National League wild card leaders while batting .151 as a team.

“I think obviously they do a good job of pitching,” Roberts said after the game of a Brewers team that went into Friday with the fifth-lowest ERA in MLB. “They throw a lot of quality pitches with their entire pitch mix. This guy was good tonight. Didn’t make many mistakes. The comeback sinker to the righty, the slider, the cutter.

“They don’t walk guys. So it just seems like, yeah, they’re pitching us well.”

That has been a theme during a barren month of July for the Dodgers’ offense. With multiple players slumping, they have hit just .205 this month with a .272 on-base percentage and .322 slugging percentage in 13 games. Only one team (the last-place Pittsburgh Pirates) has been less productive offensively this month.

“We saw it over at their place. They got some big arms,” Dodgers outfielder Michael Conforto said. “What we usually do is just have tough at-bats, and eventually somebody gets a mistake and slugs it. I think we’re working our way back to that, and will be scoring more runs shortly.

“Every time we go out there, we expect to score, and that’s what we’ve been doing all year. It’s just one of those stretches of a little bit tougher to get runs in. But, you know, obviously, we have faith in our guys, and some big names in here that made their careers on scoring runs and driving guys in. I think we’ll be okay.”

Seven of the 13 unproductive games this month have been against two of the best pitching staffs in baseball – the Houston Astros and Brewers. All seven of those have been losses, a bad portent for October when every team will have good pitching.

“I don’t know if it’s a concern,” Roberts said to that. “I think it’s one of those perfect-storm kind of plays in the sense that some guys just haven’t been swinging the bats well, and then you’re running into good pitching on top of that. It doesn’t really bode well for run production.

“But tomorrow’s a new day. We’ve got to reset and be ready because those guys aren’t going to feel sorry for us, and Freddy (Peralta) is an All-Star. For me, we’ve got to get on the fastball, try to scare him out of the zone because this is a guy again that just doesn’t walk many guys. We’ve got to find a way to be on the offensive tomorrow.”

Friday’s starter, Quinn Priester, wasn’t an All-Star but he looked like one against the Dodgers. He announced his presence with authority, striking out Shohei Ohtani, Mookie Betts and Freddie Freeman in the first inning and going on to strike out 10 in his six innings. The Dodgers have struck out 47 times in their four games against the Brewers.

Priester’s sinking fastball averaged just 94.3 mph but the Dodgers missed on five of their 12 swings at it, taking 10 more for called strikes. They didn’t have any more luck with Priester’s cutter, missing on five of 11 swings at it.

The Dodgers managed just three hits off Priester and touched second base just twice in the game. Freeman doubled with one out in the fourth inning then was promptly doubled off when Will Smith hit a line drive right at third baseman Caleb Durbin.

Ohtani reached on a fielder’s choice in the sixth inning and stole second (his 13th steal of the season), but Betts struck out on the next pitch.

Hyeseong Kim’s leadoff single in the sixth inning was the Dodgers’ last hit of the game.

“He was filling up the (strike) zone,” Conforto said of Priester, the Pirates’ first-round pick in the 2019 MLB Draft now in his third organization. “He could command all his pitches. A lot of sinkers, a little cutter, big curveball, big slider – he was really good with all of them.

“We’ve got to figure out a way to get guys on and score runs because our pitchers did their job tonight.”

The Dodgers’ ineffectual offense against the Brewers wasted an excellent outing from Tyler Glasnow in his second start back from the injured list.

Glasnow retired 12 of the first 14 batters he faced. But he made the cardinal sin of walking the leadoff hitter in the fifth inning. Isaac Collins moved up on a ground out and scored easily when Durbin lined a double into the left field corner.

That was one of just four hits allowed by Glasnow in the loss. He has allowed just two runs (one unearned) on six hits in 11 innings since coming off the IL.

“It’s been really good. It has,” Roberts said. “He’s been able to stay in his rhythm, stay in his delivery, just be in ‘compete’ mode. It’s nice to see the 99s (mph), the slider’s playing. There’s swing and miss there. There’s efficiency to the pitching.

“So all that stuff, it’s been really good. To get him through six is just another building block for Tyler. I think he’s in a really good spot. He’s healthy, feeling confident and we’re better for it, for sure.”

Glasnow’s fastball velocity has been up in each of his starts since returning from a shoulder injury he suspected was caused by changes he made in his mechanics in hopes of avoiding another elbow injury. He averaged 97.3 mph on his 37 four-seam fastballs on Friday and got six of his 12 swings-and-misses with that pitch.

A less positive trend continued when Kirby Yates followed him in the seventh inning and gave up a solo home run to Durbin. It was the sixth home run allowed by Yates this season, double his total in twice as many innings last season.