MILWAUKEE — The Dodgers went back to their struggling closer and this time he got the job done.
Missing a chance to deal Craig Kimbrel a blown save and a walk-off loss for the second straight night, the Brewers put the winning run aboard in the bottom of the ninth inning but lost, 2-1, and fell further out of first place than they’ve been all season.
It was just two and a half weeks ago that the Brewers comfortably led the National League Central by four games while riding a wave of seven wins in their first eight games out of the All-Star break. Now, after losing 10 of the 15 games while scoring three or fewer runs in seven of those losses, the Brewers find themselves three games behind the Cardinals in the division and two games out of the National League Wild Card picture.
“You just have to keep going,” said Christian Yelich after driving in Milwaukee’s only run. “We’re still in it. We still have a chance. You just have to keep battling. We’ve had a tough go but baseball is a game of resilience and you have to keep going no matter how tough it’s been on you.”
The schedule doesn’t offer any breaks. The Brewers must win behind Corbin Burnes on Thursday afternoon to split this four-game series, then they play a pair of three-game series at the Cubs and at the Dodgers before the only remaining off-day in August. After that, it’s 18 games in 17 days.
“I think if we stick to it, things will start going better for us,” Yelich said. “We haven’t played terribly. We just haven’t done enough to win some of these games. There’s a fine line between winning and losing in Major League Baseball sometimes.”
That line seems especially thin of late. In this stretch of 10 losses in 15 games, Brewers starters have a respectable 3.31 ERA.
The latest quality start came from Eric Lauer, who surrendered a pair of solo home runs over seven otherwise solid innings, bolstered by his own turnaround after walking the game’s first two hitters and by one of the Brewers’ best defensive plays of the year in the fourth, when second baseman Kolten Wong went up the middle for a grounder and flipped to second for a beauty of a double play.
But it was a 2-0 Dodgers lead going into the eighth because LA right-hander Tony Gonsolin gave up just two harmless singles through seven shutout frames on the way to improving to 15-1 with a 2.12 ERA. The Brewers managed a run in the eighth thanks to a pair of two-out walks from Caleb Ferguson and Yelich’s RBI single, leaving Los Angeles manager Dave Roberts at a decision point.
Go back to Kimbrel, who entered the night 0-for-4 in save opportunities with a one-run lead entering the bottom of the ninth, and who’d given up a one-run lead in the 11th inning of the Brewers’ 5 -4 win the night before?
With a 17-game lead in the NL West, Roberts has an incentive to help Kimbrel turn things around. So, he stuck with the right-handed closer.
Rowdy Tellez and Hunter Renfroe grounded out before Keston Hiura, making the most of a rare start, singled for the second time in the game. Mike Brosseau walked to put the winning run on base for Luis Urías, who bounced out to third base to end the game.
“Shoot, this is realistically what playoff baseball is,” Hiura said. “Pitchers going out there competing, throwing their best stuff. There’s going to be close ballgames so it’s going to come down to defense and getting timely hits. We got those hits [Tuesday] night, they got them today.”
The Brewers have 46 games remaining to be the offense that gets those hits.
“It’s one of those things where you wish it would sync up,” Lauer said. “It’s hard to put together a win streak when one side is doing well and the other side is struggling, and vice versa. It’s not the way a good team should be playing. It’s not the way we want it to go, obviously. We have to grind through these times. It’s going to happen. You have to pick each other up, you have to be there for each other. It’s just a time where you pick your guys up a little bit more.”
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