Mookie's early homer comes back to haunt Crew

MILWAUKEE -- Whether a hotel in Milwaukee is haunted, and whether ghosts are real, isn’t causing Mookie Betts to spend his nights elsewhere.

“My boys are here, so we just got an Airbnb,” Betts said. “That’s really it. But I mean, I don’t know if [ghosts] are real or not, nor do I care.”

Fair enough. But while Betts’ presence is missed at the team hotel this week, it certainly was felt in the Dodgers’ lineup as he crushed a leadoff home run off Milwaukee starter Eric Lauer to jumpstart Los Angeles’ offense in a 6-2 win over the Brewers on Tuesday at American Family Field.

“Any time he leads off the game with a homer, one, it's awesome,” catcher Will Smith said, “and two, it’s a point for us. He does it a lot, which is great.”

Indeed. Tuesday’s blast was Betts’ 39th career leadoff homer, which ranks 10th in MLB history. It sailed a Statcast-projected 392 feet and registered a 103.9 mph exit velocity.

Betts said he was looking for a fastball from Lauer, who threw him a 90.8 mph four-seamer that was letter high on the mid-to-outer half of the plate.

“It was just out over the plate,” said Betts, who also drew a walk in a seven-pitch plate appearance in the seventh inning. “I put a good swing on it, and it went over.”

It was the quick start the Dodgers needed after their bats were quiet in a 9-3 loss to Milwaukee in the series opener on Monday. It was also one of three long balls for Los Angeles in the middle game of this three-game set, which will be decided in Wednesday’s rubber game.

Smith hit a solo blast in the fifth, and Miguel Vargas added a two-run shot in the sixth.

Lauer gave up four runs (three earned) on four hits and two walks. The Dodgers forced him from the game after 3 2/3 innings, and the fact they got to him so early was notable on several fronts.

Entering the day, Lauer was 7-1 with a career 2.37 ERA in 11 previous starts against the Dodgers.

“Mookie starting it off with a homer was helpful, and we got his pitch count up,” manager Dave Roberts said. “I just thought up and down the lineup, we took much better at-bats than I recall in the years past against him.”

On a larger front, the Dodgers have had their share of struggles against southpaws in the early going this season. Entering Tuesday, here’s where they ranked in a few key categories:

• Average: .193 (last in MLB)
• On-base percentage: .292 (27th)
• Slugging percentage: .376 (24th)
• wRC+: 86 (23rd)

“I know that losing J.D. [Martinez] for a handful of those lefties certainly hasn’t helped the numbers,” Roberts said pregame. “CT [Chris Taylor] is the only guy I think that has been really consistent as far as hitting the left-handed pitcher.

“If we wanted to pick apart each hitter, we can kind of come up with an answer. But I think collectively we just haven't been good.”

One area the Dodgers have had some success against lefties is with the long ball; they entered Tuesday tied for seventh in MLB with 14.

“I didn’t even know that we were bad on lefties,” Smith said. “We just wanted to bounce back from last night. Today was a new day. It was important for us to get off to a good offensive start, put a few runs up early, and start playing downhill.”

And it started with Betts’ big swing in the first, which proved especially big after starter Noah Syndergaard was forced to exit after one inning due to a right index finger issue.

The Dodgers had to go to an unplanned bullpen day, and the offense had already put three runs on the board when Phil Bickford took the mound in place of Syndergaard in the second.

Smith’s homer in the third made it 4-0.

“Obviously, we're just continuing to play each and every game; didn't matter lefty or righty,” Betts said. “But [Lauer has] had a lot of success against us. It was good to kind of hit him around a little bit, but the main thing is we got the win.”