The Dodgers have entered uncharted territories for all the wrong reasons, as they have lost five games in a row for the first time since the 2019 season.
Adding to the Dodgers’ frustrating stretch has been their inability to score runs, as they have totaled just two runs against the Milwaukee Brewers over their first two games of the series. Shohei Ohtani has hit the only home run in the series so far, a leadoff shot against rookie Jacob Misiorowski, but he admitted that there’s only so much he can do to try and produce without the rest of the lineup failing to score runs, per Sonja Chen of MLB.com.
“You want to give credit to the opposing team,” Ohtani said through interpreter Will Ireton. “Faced pretty good pitching the last couple days. But at the same time, even if we don’t string hits, there are ways to still score runs. So myself included, we got to do a better job of just scoring runs when there are the opportunities to do so.”
The rookie Misiorowski got the better of Clayton Kershaw, as he struck out a career-high 12 strikeouts, with his first seven outs after the Ohtani home run all coming via the strikeout.
The Dodger legend gave high praise to the Brewers rookie, noting how it’s tough for anybody at the highest level to have success against him, per Bill Plunkett of the Orange County Register.
“That was super impressive. That was unbelievable. It was really special. I mean, everything. Obviously the velo, but he’s got four pitches, commands the ball and made it – I mean, I don’t know how you hit that, honestly. That’s just really tough.”
Huston Mitchell of the Los Angeles Times answers the tough question of which Dodger lefty is the best— Clayton Kershaw or Sandy Koufax— in the latest edition of Dodgers Dugout.
If I had to pick one, in their prime, to start a winner-take-all game, I’d pick Koufax. If you said “You can have this guy’s regular-season career, starting from Game 1, for your team,” I’d go with Kershaw.