Bobby Miller endured some early struggles against the Pittsburgh Pirates, but settled down and gave the Los Angeles Dodgers an opportunity to complete a 6-4 comeback win at Dodger Stadium.
The Pirates jumped out to a 1-0 lead in the first inning after Bryan Reynolds’ solo home run. The score remained there until the top of the fourth, when Jack Suwinski connected on a three-run homer to put Pittsburgh up by four.
Miller then proceeded to retire the next eight batters, with the streak ending on a two-out walk in the sixth inning. He also retired six of seven batters faced in between surrendering the two home runs.
Miller’s final line was 5.2 innings pitched, five hits, four runs, one walk and seven strikeouts. “There was some traffic in a couple innings, but I think I did a little bit of a better job,” Miller said after the game.
“Three-run homer was a bad slider. Just a little misfire, missed a spot, but I dialed it right back in. I think I did a better job of that. I wanted to go as far in this game as I possibly could. I know the bullpen has been eating up a lot of innings, so I tried to get as deep into the game as I could to get their backs.”
Miller has struggled over his last four starts but is using his mistakes as a learning experience. “Just figuring out who I am at this level,” he began.
“I’m figuring out how to mix better. I think I did a better job of that today. I thought the fastball was a lot better, and fastball command. I was able to move it around the whole strike zone. Just a couple bad pitches, I thought. I thought my command was a little bit better.”
Given the state of the bullpen and pitching staff as a whole, Miller was glad to be able to provide some length. “I knew it, especially after [Tuesday] when we almost ran out of pitching. It’s a goal every time out there,” he said of pitching deep into games.
“No matter what, I want to go really far into the game. Just giving the team a chance to win is the biggest goal and get outs.”
Dave Roberts credits Bobby Miller
Dodgers manager Dave Roberts praised Miller for bouncing back and pitching into the sixth inning. “It was great,” Roberts said of Miller’s performance.
“I thought early he gave up some runs but kind of reset, allowed himself to go deeper into the game and get into the sixth inning. For me, he just started to lose command.
“Got (Phil) Bickford to get us out of that inning, which was huge. To be able to shorten the game a little bit, I don’t know where we would’ve been if he couldn’t have gotten into the sixth inning.”
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