Burnes bitten by uncharacteristic walks vs. LA

LOS ANGELES – Shutout one night, blown out the next.

The Brewers went from becoming the first team to pitch a shutout at Dodger Stadium all season on Monday to losing a 10-1 rout to the Dodgers on Tuesday behind ace Corbin Burnes, whose long-awaited matchup with college teammate Tony Gonsolin was a dud.

Burnes matched a career high in allowing seven runs (all earned) on six hits and two infuriating walks with three strikeouts. In six career regular-season appearances against the Dodgers -- four of them starts, including each of his last two outings -- he’s surrendered 20 earned runs on 26 hits including five home runs in 18 innings.

It doesn’t take advanced math to come up with that ERA: 10.00. That’s Burnes’ worst regular-season mark against any opponent.

• Box score

“In the hitters’ meeting, we went over our at-bats and what he did to us last time and we just kind of harped on being a little bit more aggressive,” said Dodgers first baseman Freddie Freeman, whose first-inning single plated the night’s first run. “I took a couple of first-pitch cutters in Milwaukee. I wasn't going to do that today.”

Burnes pitched into the sixth inning and held the Dodgers to three runs in a Brewers win at American Family Field during the last homestand, part of the teams’ four-game series split. This time, he knew in the first inning he was “a tick off.”

Against a lineup like the Dodgers, that was a problem.

“It’s a good lineup top to bottom. They’re good at-bats. They’re tough outs,” Burnes said. “That’s what makes it tough on pitchers. But if you’re on top of your game, the saying for me is always that good pitching can beat good hitting. If you’re on top of your game, you can go out and navigate a lineup like that. If you’re not on top of your game, they’re able to back you into corners and get good pitches to hit.”

The Dodgers’ powerhouse lineup has defeated a pair of the National League’s top pitchers just this week in the Marlins’ Sandy Alcantara and Burnes, but it was the way in which Burnes’ outing unraveled that was most maddening for the reigning National League Cy Young Award winner. Already in a 1-0 hole after the first inning, he issued walks to sluggers Joey Gallo and Cody Bellinger in the second (Bellinger with two outs) after both hitters fell into 0-2 counts.

Then Burnes misfired a cutter and saw Trayce Thompson smash it for a three-run home run and a 4-0 Dodgers lead.

It’s exceedingly rare for Burnes to let a batter get away after having him down 0-2. According to Elias, going into Tuesday 117 hitters had faced 0-2 counts this season against Burnes and only one had battled back for a walk. Expand it to the past three seasons going into Tuesday, and of the 324 hitters who were down 0-2 against Burnes, 211 struck out, 31 rallied back to get a hit and only four worked a walk.

Add two more walks after 0-2 on Tuesday.

“Obviously it is a spot where he normally finishes those guys,” Brewers manager Craig Counsell said, “but he wasn’t able to do it tonight.”

“I just put myself in bad positions,” Burnes said. “The walks are really what killed it early on. Then the momentum of that game changes and then they start feeling good at the plate and they start swinging and everything they hit dropped in or found a hole. Had we commanded it better with those walks, it’s a completely different game.”

The Dodgers tacked on three more runs charged to Burnes in the fourth inning to spoil what was supposed to be a duel between Burnes and Gonsolin, who played together from 2014-16 for St. Mary’s College of California. The small school made its one and only appearance in the NCAA postseason in 2016 with that duo leading the way.

Gonsolin emerged victorious in their first head-to-head matchup after holding the Brewers to one run on three hits in five innings before the Dodgers gave him a rest at 77 pitches with a 7-1 lead.

Gonsolin is 16-1 with a 2.10 ERA and is at least a candidate to succeed his old college teammate as the NL Cy Young Award winner. Alcantara may have something to say about that, however.

“He got going earlier than I did, so we really didn’t have that [pregame moment],” Burnes said. “I’m sure I’ll cross paths with him sometime down the line. He got an opportunity last year to start some games and got the opportunity again this year and he just kind of ran with it.

“Good job to him and credit to him for putting in the work and being ready when his name is called. From the get-go this year, he’s been one of the better guys in the league.”