Brewers 8, Dodgers 6: A late rally comes up painfully short

The Dodgers offense did their job for once in an 8-6 loss against the Brewers tonight, but Scott Kazmir‘s short start and the bullpen finally having a bad day led to a terribly exciting loss.

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Kazmir had a rather rough day at the office tonight, mainly due to his inability to find the zone. While he only walked two batters, he was constantly battling deep into counts, which led to him throwing 93 pitches in his four innings of work. Kazmir struck out eight batters, but ended up surrendering three runs thanks to giving up five hits in his short outing.

Getting behind 3-0 early in the game is usually a death sentence for the Dodgers due to the anemic offense, but the Dodgers actually managed to strike back in the third. With Kazmir on second thanks to a walk and Corey Seager on first after a single, Trayce Thompson stepped up and bombed a three-run homer to center with two outs to tie the game at 3-3.

Unfortunately, for the first time in his Dodgers career, Casey Fien wasn’t fine and had a rough fifth inning that wasn’t really as bad as it looked. Fien gave up three runs on three hits in his inning of work, with two of those hits being homers, but unlike other pitchers on the staff at least he hit his spot with both pitches that ended up being dingers. Gotta give credit to the batters sometimes.

Regardless, the Dodgers were in a three-run hole again, 6-3, going into their half of the sixth, but managed to rally to tie the game. Thompson led off with a double, and with one down Howie Kendrick singled to drive Thompson in and advanced to second on an error to cut the lead to 6-4. Joc Pederson immediately followed with a single of his own, and he too advanced to second on an error, which cut the lead to 6-5. After Joc advanced to third on a wild pitch and Yasmani Grandal worked a walk, pinch hitter Justin Turner hit a deep fly ball to left for an easy sac fly. Or at least it seemed that way until Grandal decided to tag from first and run into an out at second for seemingly no reason, and Joc ended up barely getting to home before Grandal was tagged for the out. After review, the umpires decided the run still counted and the game was tied 6-6.

This team.

Chris Hatcher pitched two scoreless inning for the Dodgers, which kept the team right in the game. Pedro Baez followed him with a scoreless frame of his own, but instead of going to Kenley Jansen in the ninth or basically anybody else, Dave Roberts left Baez in to give up a two-run homer to give the Brewers an 8-6 lead.

Why was Baez in to pitch a second inning in a high-leverage situation when he’s been one of the worst relievers on the staff? Who knows?

The Dodgers offense, which did its job today, had a bit of a two-out rally in the ninth. Turner started it with a single to center, and A.J. Ellis blooped a single into center putting the runners on the corners. Chase Utley then got hit by a pitch on a 2-2 count, which brought up Seager with a chance to tie or win the game. Unfortunately, Seager couldn’t come through and struck out on three pitches to end the threat.

So it goes.

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The Dodgers drop to 35-33 on the year, and are 17-15 at home.

The Dodgers play the Brewers again tomorrow night at 4:10 PM HST/7:10 PM PST/10:10 PM EST, with the pitching matchup being Julio Urias against Zach Davies.