Offensive woes continue in shutout loss to LA

MILWAUKEE -- It was as if all of the knocks against the Brewers were on display in one 4-0 loss to the Dodgers on Monday at American Family Field.

“Can’t beat lefties.”

“Can’t get the big hit.”

Oh, and they can’t solve Freddie Freeman no matter what uniform he’s wearing.

Freeman, whose home run off Josh Hader in Game 4 of last year’s Brewers-Braves National League Division Series ended the Brewers’ season, belted a first-inning home run off Freddy Peralta to open a labored, four-inning start while Milwaukee hitters squandered scoring opportunity after scoring opportunity against L.A. starter Julio Urías. Those missed chances set the tone for a loss that dropped the Brewers two games behind the Cardinals in the NL Central standings and two games out of the NL Wild Card picture.

“We have to grind. We have to be better. We have to win games to stay in the fight,” Brewers shortstop Willy Adames said. “The vibe is always going to be fine. We’re going to have fun and we’re going to try to take the positive out of the negative sometime. We just have to be better overall and we’re going to be fine.”

These are two teams with similar World Series aspirations who are headed in dramatically different directions at the moment. The Dodgers, who got homers Monday from Freeman and Wisconsin-native Gavin Lux, have won 35 of their past 41 games to grow their NL West lead from 1 1/2 games at the start of the surge to 17 games. Only once in that 41-game span have the Dodgers absorbed back-to-back losses. The Brewers, meanwhile, have lost nine of their past 13 games and seen a four-game lead in the NL Central become a two-game deficit.

It’s no secret what’s been the problem of late: The offense, which averaged 6.8 runs while the team won seven of its first eight games coming out of the All-Star break but has averaged 3.4 runs while losing nine of the past 13.

Brewers hitters had early chances against Urías. They put the leadoff man aboard in each of the first three innings, including putting the first two hitters in the first and the third. But all of those baserunners turned into zero runs, and Urías ultimately settled in to hand a shutout to the Dodgers' bullpen in the sixth.

This is not a new problem for the Brewers, who are 17-19 in games started by left-handed opponents and entered the night with baseball’s sixth-lowest OPS against southpaws (.662). In Urías, they faced one of the best lefties in the game. He is 10-0 with a 1.99 ERA in his past 11 starts.

“We still have a bunch of guys who have a big track record of success against left-handed pitching,” Brewers manager Craig Counsell said. “I absolutely believe we can [hit them] and will.”

That’s only one way in which the Brewers are an offensive enigma. They entered Monday ninth of MLB’s 30 teams in runs per game (4.57) and first in OPS with runners in scoring position (.831). But since the Trade Deadline, the Brewers have been flat. On Monday they finished 0-for-9 with six strikeouts with runners in scoring position. Three of those strikeouts came in the sixth inning, when they whiffed four times against Dodgers reliever Chris Martin (Andrew McCutchen reached on a passed ball to start that inning).

“We have to be better on the situational hitting,” Adames said. “We haven’t been executing when we need to. We have to be better at that and we’re going to be good if we start doing that. Especially now, it’s late in the season and we know we have to do our best. We haven’t been able to do it lately but we have a really good team and I’m really positive on the boys. We’re going to bounce back and we’re going to be in the fight.”

The Brewers are bidding for a fifth consecutive postseason berth, but they face an uphill climb. A year ago on Aug. 15 they were 25 games over .500 and had an eight-game lead on the rest of the division. This year is more like 2019, when they were only five games over .500 on Aug. 15 and needed one of their September surges to win a Wild Card spot.

“We are really good at playing late in the season,” Peralta said. “I think that we’re just having a little bit of a hard moment right now but I know that the team is going to come back and win games again. … We just need to play and have fun and try to win.”