Shohei Ohtani hit his ninth leadoff home run of the season but the Los Angeles Dodgers saw their losing streak extended to a season-worst five games as they fell 3-1 to the Milwaukee Brewers.
Ohtani’s 21st leadoff homer of his career came on an 0-2 pitch from Jacob Misiorowski. It was an encouraging start but all the Dodgers managed against the standout Brewers rookie.
Misiorowski struck out the next three batters faced in the first inning, which set the tone for the fifth start of his career.
Misiorowski had 10 strikeouts through four innings and finished with 12 in the game. His previous career high was eight strikeouts.
Misiorowski’s 12 strikeouts through five innings tied for the most in MLB history during the pitch tracking era (since 2008).
Making his first start since reaching 3,000 career strikeouts, Clayton Kershaw was doing his part to protect the slim lead as the first two hits he allowed were soft infield singles by William Contreras that both rolled up the third-base line and stayed fair.
Contreras’ second infield hit of the game started a small rally for the Brewers as Jackson Chourio followed with a single to put two on with nobody out in the fourth inning, and Andrew Vaughn’s RBI base hit tied the game with one out.
Milwaukee then took a 2-1 lead on Isaac Collins’ chopper that got by a diving Miguel Rojas and skipped off Mookie Betts’ glove to carry into left field for an RBI single.
The Dodgers had an opportunity to erase their deficit when Misiorowski walked Ohtani to lead off the sixth inning and Betts followed with an infield single. Freddie Freeman’s productive out advanced both runners, but Ohtani was thrown out trying to score on the contact play when Andy Pages grounded to third base and Michael Conforto struck out.
Misiorowski threw a career-high 91 pitches over his six innings of work.
Dodgers’ losing streak stats
The Dodgers’ current five-game losing streak is their first since May 21-26, 2024. They also have now lost their first series to the Brewers since dropping three of four at American Family Field from April 29-May 2, 2021.
Furthermore, the Dodgers are now 0-5 in their stretch of playing nine consecutive games against teams with a winning record. They look to avoid being swept by the Brewers on Wednesday before their road trip resumes Friday with a weekend series against the San Francisco Giants.
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