PHOENIX -- Before Wednesday night’s game against the Dodgers, Torey Lovullo talked about what the D-backs needed to do to end their losing streak and stop a slide that is threatening to completely derail their season.

“We’ve got to find a way to win those little margins and win those inches that are all over the baseball field,” Lovullo said.

Those little things add up. They are the small details, like hitting the cutoff man, throwing to the right base, running the bases well and getting a bunt down when needed.

They are what Lovullo prides himself on teaching, it’s what will anger him the most when they don’t get executed properly.

Just a few hours later, after watching his team fall, 2-0, to the Dodgers -- the D-backs’ eighth loss in a row and their 24th in the past 31 games -- the manager was at his wits’ end.

It took 87 games this year for the D-backs to be shut out for the first time. Including Wednesday, over their last 28 games they’ve been shut out four times.

“We’ve got to be better offensively, period, end of story,” Lovullo said.

The D-backs were 0-for-6 with runners in scoring position Wednesday with two innings in particular coming back to haunt them.

Dodgers starter Bobby Miller was tough, but the D-backs put runners on second and third to open the fifth with the top of the lineup coming up and the game scoreless. It was a chance to take a lead and maybe drive Miller from the game.

Miller, though, proceeded to retire the next three batters without a run scoring.

“I'm looking for guys to lock it in in the most critical moments, want to step up there, get the job done, expect to get the job done,” Lovullo said. “Those are themes that we talked about from Spring Training on. We rehearsed it, we watched these guys execute, and the fact that we're not getting it done is extremely frustrating. But I can promise you one thing that this coaching staff and the rest of the groups that are responsible for making good things happen, are going to die trying to get this thing turned around.”

It would be easier if Lovullo could point to players not working hard, or not putting in the effort before games. But the manager makes his rounds every day and sees the work going on, sees the pain on the faces of his players after games and knows that it’s not for lack of trying.

In the seventh, the D-backs once again had a golden opportunity, putting runners at first and second with no one out.

This time, Dodgers manager Dave Roberts removed Miller from the game and brought in left-hander Caleb Ferguson.

Lovullo decided to try to have Geraldo Perdomo lay down a bunt, something that he failed to do at a crucial moment in a loss to the Twins on Sunday.

Once again, Perdomo popped the bunt up, and Ferguson made a sliding catch.

“That's one of the things we’ve got to get better at,” Lovullo said. “We've been very good at getting bunts down, but the last 10 days [or] two weeks we have not, and it's cost us some games. So that's one area we’ve got to tighten up.”

Compounding the mistake, Alek Thomas had strayed too far off second base and was easily doubled up. Once again, the D-backs came away without anything to show for it, and Lovullo was left explaining that baserunners have been taught to see the ball on the ground in those situations before they take off for the next base.

“Baseball 101,” Lovullo said. “When we are playing games the way I expect us to, the Baseball 101 concepts are locked down. And I've been having to defend some of the activities that show me we are not executing on a high level in that area. That is what bothers me more than anything. It’s not acceptable.”