Dodgers drop their sixth straight (their longest losing streak since 2019), this time in walk-off fashion to end a Milwaukee sweep.
The Dodgers came very close to winning Wednesday on patience alone, leading 2-1 heading into the ninth inning via a boatload of walks and very few hits, but Tanner Scott couldn’t shut the door on the Brewers. Milwaukee tied things up in the ninth and then overpowered Los Angeles in the tenth to walk things off 3-2, thus handing the Dodgers their sixth straight loss and second consecutive sweep.
After four innings of getting nothing done against the veteran José Quintana, the Dodgers opened the game’s scoring in the fifth on the back of three walks. What in a different period would have been the source of a crooked number turned out to be just enough for a single run. The story was basically the same in the seventh, once again with the Dodgers securing a one-run lead without stringing hits together. The bottom of the order and Shohei Ohtani passed the baton, and Mookie Betts came up big with the bases-loaded sac fly.
In the two innings they scored, Los Angeles got eight people on base, and only two runs came across. For eight and a half frames, this felt like enough, but that was only the case due to near-perfect pitching. The vulnerability remained there, and when the Brewers strung together three singles in four at-bats against Scott, Los Angeles paid the price of all those runs it left on the basepaths.
As far as the pitching is concerned, no one comes back 100 percent because it takes a minute to settle into everything, but the Dodgers couldn’t have asked for anything better from Tyler Glasnow in his first start back. He worked on a very diligent rehab assignment to come back as close as he could to being fully built up, and it paid off. The right-hander dealt with a bit of traffic in the second inning, when the Brewers loaded the bases and worked up his pitch count, but a pop-up and a strikeout kept them off the board.
Having gone 78 pitches in his final rehab outing, Glasnow managed to complete five innings against the Brewers on 85 pitches, with the only blemish on his record being an unearned run in the fifth. Jake Bauers walked to lead off the fifth and worked all the way to score a run without a single hit from Milwaukee. Bauers moved to second on a balk and then scored after a throwing error by catcher Will Smith on a steal of third.
Even Scott’s issues were more unfortunate than anything else; after all, only one of the three singles he allowed came on a hard-hit ball. Had he received anything resembling a little margin for error, the outcome of this game might’ve been different.
It’s easy to point to momentum as to why the Dodgers’ bats went down quietly with three strikeouts in the tenth, allowing Milwaukee to need just a single to win it in the bottom of the frame. However, the better explanation is that they were outmatched by Trevor Megill’s arsenal of 100+ MPH fastballs.
Los Angeles still retained some hope Kirby Yates could prolong this game, but Jackson Chourio made sure that would not happen with a walk-off one-out RBI single in the tenth.
On top of all the standard concerns of this loss and current stretch, what’s bothersome is that for a close duel with quite a few momentum-shifting plays, they all seemed to go the Dodgers’ way. And it still wasn’t enough. James Outman’s fifth-inning walk came on a 50-50 check-swing, and Shohei Ohtani after him got a few questionable ball calls to work his base-on-balls. Trying to tie things up in the bottom of the seventh, just like they did in the fifth, Milwaukee went for a stolen base, but this time, Smith gunned down Caleb Durbin. All of it was for naught.
But in the end, this game ended just like the five previous contests. The Dodgers have lost six straight for the first time since April 8-13, 2019.
Wednesday particulars
Home runs: none
WP —Trevor Megill (2-2): 1 IP, 3 strikeouts
LP — Kirby Yates (4-3): ⅓ IP, 1 hit, 1 unearned run
Up next
The Dodgers hit the road and return to California for a date with the Giants at Oracle Park in San Francisco. The opener on Friday (7:15 p.m.; SportsNet LA, MLB Network) features a battle of sinker-ballers, Dustin May and Logan Webb.