Dodgers Arrive Flat, Brewers Make Them Pay

The Dodgers entered Milwaukee fresh off another emotionally taxing series against the Padres, and by Friday night, the wear and tear showed. Los Angeles can insist the games against San Diego are just another three on the schedule, but at American Family Field they looked less like a club carrying momentum and more like one carrying luggage.

Maybe it was fatigue. Maybe it was the Brewers. Maybe it was both.

Whatever the explanation, the Dodgers spent most of the evening looking a step slow in a 5-1 loss to Milwaukee, a team that continues to treat regular-season games against Los Angeles like a personal hobby.

The Brewers have now won nine straight regular-season meetings against the Dodgers dating back to August of last year, a bizarre little trend that continues to exist alongside the fact that Los Angeles swept Milwaukee out of the NLCS last October. Baseball remains committed to making absolutely no sense.

Before the game, Dave Roberts made it clear he understood exactly what kind of challenge his club was walking into.

“It’s a really good team,” Roberts said. “I don’t think that people appreciate how well this team plays baseball. There’s not a lot of fanfare as far as the name recognition, but the way Pat Murphy gets these guys to play, it’s a fun brand of baseball.”

He paused briefly before adding the part Dodgers fans probably didn’t enjoy hearing.

“Last year, during the regular season, we couldn’t beat these guys once.”

Not much changed Friday.

Milwaukee ambushed Justin Wrobleski before the left-hander could settle into the game. Jackson Chourio and Brice Turang opened the first inning with singles, and William Contreras quickly turned the evening unpleasant with a three-run homer to left before Wrobleski had even recorded an out.

By the time Andrew Vaughn doubled home another run in the second inning, the Brewers had built a 5-0 lead and the Dodgers offense looked like it was still somewhere between Petco Park and the Wisconsin state line.

To Wrobleski’s credit, the night could have unraveled much further.

After allowing six hits to six of the first seven batters he faced, the rookie steadied himself and worked through five innings, preserving a bullpen that has already carried a heavy load this season.

“They put the ball in play and they were hits,” Wrobleski said afterward. “And obviously the home run there, that kind of hurts the whole outing. It sucks to only get through five there and give up those runs in the first and put our team in a hole.”

Roberts appreciated the recovery even if the damage had already been done.

“I give him a lot of credit for bearing down and finding a way to get through five innings,” Roberts said. “It wasn’t his best outing, but I think if you look at innings three, four and five, being more efficient, being more like he was, was big.”

The Dodgers offense, meanwhile, spent most of the night being quietly escorted back to the dugout by Brewers starter Logan Henderson, who struck out seven over five scoreless innings.

Los Angeles didn’t record its first hit until Shohei Ohtani singled in the fourth. Naturally, because the normal rules no longer seem to apply to him, Ohtani also accounted for the Dodgers’ only run with a sacrifice fly in the seventh.

In three plate appearances, Ohtani walked, singled and drove in the lone run. On a night where the Dodgers collectively looked like they had spent the afternoon helping someone move furniture, Ohtani somehow still managed to look fully operational.

The Dodgers’ best opportunity came in the fourth inning when Ohtani singled and both Freddie Freeman and Andy Pages drew walks to load the bases. But Max Muncy popped out to second, ending the threat and preserving Milwaukee’s early cushion.

Things became more concerning in the eighth when Muncy was hit on the right wrist by a pitch and exited the game. Initial X-rays were negative, though Roberts said Muncy would not play over the weekend while the swelling subsides.

The loss dropped the Dodgers to 0-4 in their last four regular-season games at American Family Field, where Milwaukee has outscored them 20-5 during that stretch.

The Brewers are hot. The Dodgers looked tired. Sometimes the explanation doesn’t need to be much more complicated than that.

And after the emotional weight of the San Diego series, perhaps Friday was simply one of those inevitable schedule losses that show up across a 162-game season.

Still, Roberts offered a reminder before the game that probably landed with even more accuracy after it ended.

“When we play really good teams, your margin is smaller and you got to play good baseball,” he said. “No one likes to get embarrassed.”