LOS ANGELES -- Matching Dodgers starter Clayton Kershaw almost pitch for pitch, it was Miles Mikolas and the Cardinals who came out on the wrong side of the duel Tuesday night.

After both Mikolas and Kershaw allowed one run in the second inning, Kershaw shut the Cardinals down in the third inning and Mikolas allowed the go-ahead RBI double to Justin Turner. Quelled by Kershaw as the game continued, the Cardinals wouldn’t come back from the deficit in their 3-1 loss at Dodger Stadium.

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Other than the curveball that Turner lined to right field, Mikolas was solid again for the Cardinals. In his last five starts, he has a 2.45 ERA and has given up three or fewer runs in those starts. He held the Dodgers to two runs on six hits and a walk in 6 1/3 innings while striking out seven.

“Only a handful of pitches I’d like back,” Mikolas said. “Kershaw had a good game, and sometimes there’s not much you can do when you go up against a guy like that.”

With little run support Tuesday night, the Cardinals lost their fourth straight and seventh of their first 10 on their 11-game stretch against contending teams (Astros, Cubs, A’s and Dodgers). St. Louis is still just 2 1/2 games behind the first-place Cubs in the National League Central, but the Brewers are only a half-game behind the Cardinals after Tuesday.

The offense has been an issue in all of those losses, and the Cardinals have managed only six runs during their current losing streak.

“We had opportunities,” Cardinals manager Mike Shildt said. “We left a fair amount of guys on base. We’ve got to be able to score.”

The quiet offense looked like it could wake up against Kershaw. Dexter Fowler and Paul DeJong led off the first and second innings with doubles, and Matt Carpenter’s RBI single put the Cardinals on the board first in the top of the second inning.

But Kershaw settled in and silenced the Cardinals as the game went on. Kershaw didn’t allow a hit after the third inning. He gave up his first walk of the game in the top of the seventh.

“He knows how to pitch,” Shildt said. “He knows what he can use, when he can use it and who he can use it against. You don’t get to this stage in your career without having that court awareness and that kind of idea.”

“[Kershaw] kept us off balance,” DeJong said. “Mixing up pitches, throwing pitches real close to the zone that weren’t quite strikes. Expanded on us a little bit.”

When the Cardinals finally got Kershaw out of the game, they had a chance to flip the score against the Dodgers’ bullpen. Kolten Wong led off the top of the eighth with a single, and DeJong came up with the bases loaded against Pedro Baez. But DeJong fell into an 0-2 count and struck out swinging hard on a 97 mph fastball high in the zone to end the frame.

The Cardinals have scored three runs in their past three games, and DeJong said the issue is a mix of the quality pitching they’re facing as well as the approach at the plate.

“I think we need to do a better job of just getting baserunners on,” DeJong said. “Once we get late in the game, everyone wants to be the hero, and I feel like that’s a tough way to live. It’s not always going to work out.”