Bad luck, shaky defense sting Crew: 'You have to play clean baseball'

August 17th, 2023
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      LOS ANGELES -- screamed. sat in the dirt. flipped his helmet. Joey Wiemer turned around and said a few choice words to the center-field wall.

      It was a night full of frustration for the Brewers, who seemed to be punished for making hard contact as often as the Dodgers were rewarded for it during an exasperating 7-1 loss at Dodger Stadium on Wednesday.

      “All the stuff that happens in baseball has kind of happened to us in the last two days,” Brewers catcher said. “The soft contact, all the stuff that happened offensively and defensively, it hasn’t been our best.”

      Whether the result of bad luck or bad defense or just another night of not enough offense, the Dodgers emerged Monday with their 10th consecutive victory and the Brewers absorbed a loss that cut their National League Central lead to 2 1/2 games over the second-place Cubs and Reds, who each won Wednesday -- the Cubs on a walk-off homer.

      Out west, the Brewers endured a significantly less enjoyable series of moments:

      1. Catcher interference … twice?
      Miley had never absorbed a loss in this ballpark, but Wednesday wasn’t his night.

      In the first inning, the Dodgers manufactured a 1-0 lead with a walk, a 64.5 mph infield hit from Will Smith, a catcher interference call against Contreras with J.D. Martinez at the plate, followed by Amed Rosario’s 60.1 mph, run-scoring groundout. For Miley, it was just the start.

      In the second, he surrendered a two-out, go-ahead home run to Miguel Rojas and then saw the inning continue with Mookie Betts’ 78.6 mph single, Freddie Freeman’s ground-ball double just past the second baseman and then another infield hit for Smith. This one was even softer than the first -- 45.2 mph, according to Statcast.

      Miley slipped after fielding the baseball and felt a pull in his groin, causing a scare and drawing a visit from the athletic trainer. But he remained in the game to face Martinez, who batted with the bases loaded and appeared to end the inning when shortstop Willy Adames fielded a bouncer with a terrific sliding stop and threw to second in time for a forceout.

      Instead, Martinez was awarded first base for the second time in as many innings on a catcher interference call.

      This time, it forced home a run to make it a 3-1 game.

      “I didn’t execute as well as I needed to against a lineup like that,” Miley said. “But even then, I felt like every ground ball had a GPS connected to it.”

      Miley took the blame for the second catcher interference, saying he intended to throw a fastball away but yanked it inside.

      “I probably set William up for failure right there,” Miley said.

      Said Contreras: “It happened once, I need to make an adjustment after the first one. You have to look where the hitter is set up.”

      2. Loud outs with no reward
      Miley and Dodgers starter Clayton Kershaw each pitched five innings. The average exit velocity of the Dodgers’ balls in play against Miley was 83.2 mph. The Brewers’ balls in play against Kershaw averaged 92.6 mph.

      And yet the Brewers had nothing to show for it, aside from ’s home run leading off the second inning.

      In the fourth, Adames doubled and Monasterio walked, but both were stranded when Sal Frelick lined out to first baseman Freeman, who beat Monasterio back to the bag for an inning-ending double play. And in the fifth, Yelich hit a 111.5 mph line drive to the right-center-field gap that carried an expected batting average of .740. Dodgers right fielder Betts had a great jump and ran it down rather easily.

      “I thought we did a decent job against Kershaw, had some good swings,” Brewers manager Craig Counsell said. “We didn’t get a ball to drop to create a big opportunity. Then their bullpen shut us down pretty good.”

      The Brewers didn’t have any hits after Adames’ one-out double in the fourth.

      “It’s not enough,” Counsell said. “We have to create more scoring opportunities. We have to get some balls to drop, but we also have to create more opportunities.”

      3. One final, costly error
      Both of the catcher interference calls resulted in an error charged to Contreras, and there was a third Brewers error charged to center fielder Wiemer in the sixth when he ranged back to the warning track for Freeman’s deep fly ball. Wiemer misjudged it, made a halfhearted leap and missed the baseball, allowing the Dodgers to grow their lead to 6-1.

      In losing the first two games of this series, the Brewers have scored three runs on as many hits -- five -- as they have committed errors.

      “You have to play clean baseball to beat a team like that,” Miley said, “and we just haven't the last couple of days."

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      Supervising Club Reporter Adam McCalvy has covered the Brewers for MLB.com since 2001.