Dodgers Digest Los Angeles Dodgers Baseball Blog
The Dodgers dropped the final game of the 4-game series with the NL Central-leading Brewers by a score of 6-4 on Thursday afternoon at American Family Field in Milwaukee.
The afternoon started a bit roughly for Dodgers and Jack Flaherty, who was making just his third start for the club. He gave up a leadoff double to Brice Turang before stud rookie Jackson Chourio did this.
Then stud catcher William Contreras did this.
Four batters in, Flaherty and the Dodgers were down 3-0. But that would be all the damage Milwaukee did to Flaherty. He finished with a respectable pitching line: 5 IP, 4 H, 3 R/ER, 2 BB, 7 K, 93 pitches, 60 strikes.
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The offense helped him become the pitcher of record by chipping away at the 3-0 deficit. After a 1-out single in the second inning by Gavin Lux and a subsequent throwing error by future Dodger Willy Adames, Jason Heyward brought Lux home on a ground out. Andy Pages followed that up with an RBI double to make it 3-2 after two innings.
In the third, Lux would tie the game with an RBI single that scored Freddie Freeman.
In the sixth, Lux walked to leadoff the frame. Miguel Rojas followed with a single. Then, with two outs, Enrique Hernandez came through with an RBI single to make it 4-3 Dodgers.
Michael Kopech pitched the bottom of the sixth and, while he allowed some loud contact, got out unscathed. In the seventh, Alex Vesia pitched himself into — and out of — trouble with a tiny assist to the home plate umpire and Turang’s lack of plate discipline.
Things fell apart in the eight. Daniel Hudson was rudely greeted by a Chourio double. Hudson followed by walking Garrett Mitchell before Contreras hit a liner off the mound, which caromed off Hudson’s leg. Rojas tried to make a spectacular barehanded play, but couldn’t corral the ball. Long story short, it was bases loaded with no outs for Adames. He would line an RBI single to left to tie the game at 4.
A hard grounder by Tyler Black was stopped by a diving Hernandez, but he couldn’t prevent the go-ahead run from scoring. Sacramento State legend Rhys Hoskins followed with a hard grounder off Hudson’s foot that Rojas was able to snag this time and record the out. However, a run scored to make it 6-4. Hudson’s final line was not great: 2/3 IP, 3 H, 3 R/ER, 1 BB, 0 K. Woof.
Anthony Banda relieved Hudson and got Sal Frelick on one pitch. It was a bunt attempt that Lux made a nice glove-feed to Freeman to record the out.
Devin Williams got the ninth inning for the Brewers and promptly got Pages (fly out), a pinch-hitting Mookie Betts (strikeout) and Shohei Ohtani (strikeout) in order.
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The Dodgers fall to 71-51 with the loss, while the Brewers improve to 69-52. LA travels to St. Louis to start a weekend series with the Cardinals. Justin Wrobleski is the Dodgers’ probable starter. They’ll face Miles Mikolas, of this infamous quote. First pitch is scheduled for 5:15 p.m. Pacific time.
The NL West lead is down to two games. It’d probably be time to start playing well again.
