Dodgers can’t solve Jacob Misiorowski, lose to Brewers

LOS ANGELES — It was a Miz-erable day for the Dodgers’ hitters.

The slowest of the six pitches Milwaukee Brewers right-hander Jacob Misiorowski threw to Shohei Ohtani, leading off the first inning for the Dodgers Saturday, was 102.9 mph. It was not a good sign for a Dodgers’ offense that has been “bullied” by fastballs for the past six weeks, seeing more of them than any other team and producing less.

Flashing the best fastball in the game – it averaged 101.4 mph Saturday and reached 103.1 mph or higher eight times – Misiorowski held the Dodgers to one run on five hits in six innings as the Brewers handed them a 4-1 defeat.

“I’ve never seen the first four pitches of a game, 104 (mph),” marveled Dodgers manager Dave Roberts. “We knew it was going to be a tall task coming into the game. I thought we did a nice job in the sense of shortening up, competing, getting him out in the sixth inning.

“Tomorrow’s a big game. It gives us a chance to split a series, gives us a chance to win the season series.”

The Dodgers (with Tarik Skubal on the mound) will have to win Sunday to get that split of this four-game series, meaning they will gain no ground in the race for the best record in the National League. The Brewers (76-48) are currently two games better than the Dodgers (74-50).

“I think it’s more than just this series. It’s year after year we’re right there with them,” Misiorowski said on FOX after the game. “We’re competing. I think we’re a team to be reckoned with. It’s fun to be in that clubhouse right now. The boys are fired up. It’s fun to be a Brewer.”

Misiorowski does not make it fun to be a batter.

He struck out six in six innings Saturday – a relatively modest total for the right-hander who leads the big leagues with 210 strikeouts this season. His fastball was its usual super-charged self, but his slider was even more devastating. He threw it only 15 times in his 98-pitch workday. The Dodgers swung 10 times and put it in play just once (a sixth-inning ground out by Andy Pages).

“It’s one of those things that you got to defend against the fastball,” Roberts said. “When he has that slider that is presented as a strike, it’s just tough to not offer. That’s why he’s arguably the best in baseball.”

During his in-game interview, Roberts said the Dodgers would have to change their focus against Misiorowski – “You can’t try to slug this guy,” he said. “Hopefully you piece some things together.”

The Dodgers pieced some things together for their only run of the day in the third inning.

Alex Call hit a dribbler to the right side that left his bat at 37.2 mph and beat it out for a one-out single. Two batters later, Shohei Ohtani bounced a ground ball down the first-base line for an RBI triple.

The Dodgers stressed Misiorowski again in the fifth inning when three consecutive singles by Teoscar Hernandez, Call and Hunter Feduccia loaded the bases for the top of the order with one out.

But Misiorowski struck out Ohtani on three pitches – two sliders wrapped around a 102.4 mph fastball – and Freddie Freeman on five, getting him with another slider.

“The bottom of the order did what they could do,” Roberts said of the source of four of the Dodgers’ five hits. “We created stress and we had the guys we wanted up to bat. But Jacob made really good pitches. He punched out Shohei and Freddie and got out of that stress.

“Guys like that, you just don’t have many opportunities. So when you do have them, you got to try to find a way to cash in. But certainly with that guy, easier said than done.”

Dodgers starter Justin Wrobleski actually gave up fewer hits (four) than Misiorowski in his six innings. But half of them were home runs – the bane of Wrobleski’s second half. Doubling the damage, both of them were two-run drives.

Wrobleski hit the inside corner with a 1-and-0 slider to Joey Ortiz in the second inning but it was belt-high and Ortiz sent it into the left-field home run seats, just out of Hernandez’s reach. Two innings later, William Contreras (a .168 hitter since the All-Star break) golfed a cutter near his ankles into the left-field pavilion for the Brewers’ second two-run home run of the game.

Wrobleski has now given up 11 home runs in 19⅔ innings over his past four starts after giving up just eight in his first 106⅔ innings this season.

“One (bad) pitch, maybe two if you count the first Contreras hit,” Wrobleski said of the two homers that ruined his afternoon. “The homer I gave up to him, he got a slider that’s probably going to bounce and hit a homer on it … tip your cap, good swing. And then Ortiz one, again, just a good swing. So sometimes that happens, but unfortunately, it’s been happening a lot to me lately, and it’s super frustrating because today I felt like I threw the ball really well, and it just kind of gets spoiled by those two hits. It is what it is, but yeah, it’s just frustrating.”

Getting the Brewers starter out of the game didn’t end the Dodgers’ Miz-ery. They didn’t have another hit after loading the bases in the fifth inning.