Lights-out Burnes not enough for Brewers to solve Dodgers

LOS ANGELES -- Scott Boras sat behind home plate and charted every pitch. His client, Brewers ace Corbin Burnes, pitched like someone who will earn a lot of money when he reaches free agency at the conclusion of next season. Perhaps the deep-pocketed Dodgers, with their long history of employing ace pitchers, will be one of the teams in play.

That possibility is far in the distance. Burnes has a more immediate task at hand with the Brewers, who wasted his scoreless, seven-inning gem in a 1-0 loss at Dodger Stadium that completed the Dodgers’ three-game sweep.

It was a more empathic sweep than the finale’s tight score would indicate. The Dodgers outscored the Brewers in the series, 14-3, while holding Milwaukee to 10 total hits and an 0-for-11 showing with runners in scoring position. Including the teams’ meeting in Milwaukee earlier this year, the Dodgers won five of six regular-season matchups while outscoring the Brewers, 31-15.

“Yeah, obviously it was a tough series,” Burnes said. “If we want to win the World Series, we’re going to have to beat teams like this.

“We’ve got the team to do it. We can score runs when we need to, and we can pitch when we play defense. That’s what it takes to win the World Series and get deep in the postseason. So, yeah, it’s a tough series. But if we’re going to win the World Series, we have to beat this team.”

The mighty Dodgers celebrated an 11th consecutive victory while the Brewers dropped a half-game in the standings to the Cubs and Reds, who pulled to within two games of NL Central-leading Milwaukee on a night both rivals were idle. If the division continues to remain close, tiebreaker scenarios could come into play; the Brewers already own the tiebreaker over the Reds by virtue of winning the head-to-head season series, and they lead the Cubs, 4-3, with six games still to come.

Burnes certainly did his part on Thursday. He surrendered a Mookie Betts single and a Freddie Freeman walk to start the series finale with a relatively shaky, 21-pitch first, then delivered seven dominant innings on 98 pitches. He yielded two hits (both singles) and two walks while striking out nine.

“I was just a little jumpy early on,” Burnes said, chalking it up to feeling too good during his pregame warmup. “I just had to come in, settle down a little bit and get back to my base. After the first, we went into cruise mode there and did what we wanted to do. We got ahead, we got the swing and miss, we got weak contact.

“Overall, it was a good one. Unfortunately, we just couldn’t get the runs tonight.”

That’s been a familiar refrain. The Brewers rank 27th of 30 teams with a .686 OPS, and 22nd in runs scored. They fell to the Dodgers on Thursday because of one unlikely swing; L.A.’s backup catcher, Austin Barnes, slugged his first home run all season in the bottom of the eighth off Joel Payamps.

“It’s not going to be the last tough series for us,” said Brewers shortstop Willy Adames after striking out in all four of his at-bats -- three times with Sal Frelick in scoring position, including to end the game. “We know we have to be better than this. We’re going to have to compete to be in a better spot.

“I mean, we’re going to Texas. That’s going to be a tough series, too. We have to be better than what we did here.”

He included himself in that assessment.

“I’ve been trying to do that all year. It’s not working for me,” Adames said. “I have to be better.”

Just like Wednesday night, the Brewers’ trouble scoring runs wasn’t for a lack of loud contact. First baseman Carlos Santana hit the ball hard each of his first three times up, including a warning-track flyout to end Dodgers starter Lance Lynn’s 1-2-3 first inning, and a 107.1 mph lineout to first baseman Freeman in the Brewers’ particularly frustrating sixth.

That inning began with back-to-back singles from Tyrone Taylor and Christian Yelich, putting runners at the corners with nobody out. But Taylor broke home on William Contreras’ comebacker to Lynn, and was out between third and home.

“A little baserunning mistake with Tyrone,” Brewers manager Craig Counsell said. “It was a tough play.”

Tough, because Yelich had broken for second with the pitch. When Lynn initially fielded the ball, he looked to second base as if he were going to concede the run in exchange for a double play. But with the fleet-footed Yelich on the move, Lynn thought again, and went home for one out.

When Santana lined out and Frelick popped out, the threat had evaporated. Lynn went on to work seven scoreless innings, allowing four hits with one walk and three strikeouts -- all of Adames.

“It looks like our bats had holes today, I guess,” Adames said.