LOS ANGELES -- Tarik Skubal looked like a man on a mission in what was sure to be his final inning of work on Sunday against the Brewers.
The southpaw hit 99 mph twice -- his two hardest pitches of the day -- while striking out the side in emphatic fashion -- perhaps relieving some of the frustration that built while the Brewers drove up his pitch count all afternoon.
"I kind of want to leave it all out on the field," Skubal said, "so that way when I look back on my outing, I know I gave it everything I had."
Skubal allowed just two runs (one earned) across six innings, but he was charged with the loss as the Dodgers fell to the Brewers, 6-2, in the series finale at Dodger Stadium. After dropping three of four this weekend, L.A. lost the season series to Milwaukee, which could have ramifications later on if tiebreakers are needed to determine postseason seeding.
In his third start as a Dodger, Skubal struck out seven, walked two, allowed seven hits and threw a career-high 109 pitches. He had not thrown more than 96 this season.
"Man, it feels good every time he's out there. It really does," manager Dave Roberts said. "And I just still don't think we've seen his best, which is a good thing for us."
While Skubal had to grind his way through a Brewers lineup that put plenty of traffic on the basepaths, he was able to limit the damage. One run scored on a missed-catch error from Tommy Edman in the second inning and the other crossed the plate on Jake Bauers' RBI single in the fifth. After Skubal induced a groundout to get out of his penultimate inning, his frustration was visible as he walked off the mound. Already at 95 pitches, he believed he was likely done for the day, and he wanted to pitch deeper into the game.
Roberts and Skubal were aligned in that regard. After Roberts checked in with his starter, Skubal got the go-ahead to go back out for the sixth. He struck out Brandon Lockridge swinging on three pitches and retired Joey Ortiz on a foul tip on four pitches. Jonathan Ornelas worked the count a bit more, but Skubal dotted a curveball on the seventh pitch of the at-bat to sit him down.
While Skubal has been solid in his time as a Dodger, he has been frustrated by not putting himself into a position to pitch deep into games, which he described as "not acceptable."
"I'm not going to be perfect out there, but yeah, I need to be more efficient," Skubal said. "That's the standard that I hold myself to, is pitching deeper into ballgames and giving our team a chance to win every time out."
Skubal kept his team within reach, but Brewers right-hander Logan Henderson, whose name often surfaced as a trade chip in hypothetical Brewers packages for Skubal leading up to the Trade Deadline. Henderson outdueled Skubal on Sunday, stymying the Dodgers across seven innings of one-run ball.
Milwaukee tacked on another four runs against the bullpen, although two were unearned due to Edman's second error of the game.
Dating back to July 31, the Dodgers have lost 11 of their past 16 games. An overall lapse in fundamentals, both offensive and defensive, have been at the center of the stretch of poor play.
"We haven't been good," said Max Muncy, who homered and reached 10 years of service time on Sunday. "It's one of those stretches. We need urgency. We need to fix some things. … Today really sucked. It was a big game. We kind of needed to win this one, and we didn't. But it's just how it goes."
Last season, the Dodgers saw the Brewers at a similar point in the regular season, right at the beginning of what wound up being a second-half swoon. L.A. was swept by Milwaukee in the season series, and when the two teams met again in the NL Championship Series, L.A. turned the tables, sweeping Milwaukee.
This year, the Dodgers have made securing home-field advantage and a first-round bye a priority, but they're currently a half-game outside of the top two seeds in the NL and have lost the head-to-head tiebreaker to the Brewers.
"I really wanted to win this game, because it could matter," Roberts said. "But we didn't. So now we’ve got to move forward. But I hope it doesn't come back to bite us."