Dodgers doomed by shortest start of Yoshinobu Yamamoto’s MLB career

MILWAUKEE — Sunday was one of the best days of Yoshinobu Yamamoto’s baseball career as he was named to the MLB All-Star team for the first time.

Monday was one of the worst.

Yamamoto gave up five runs and failed to get out of the first inning – thanks in part to a throwing error by shortstop Mookie Betts – in the shortest start of his two-season MLB career, sending the Dodgers on their way to a 9-1 loss to the Milwaukee Brewers.

The loss was the Dodgers’ fourth in a row, matching their longest losing streak of the past two seasons.

They have been outscored 38-7 during this skid while dropping parts from the lineup over the past week – Max Muncy, Tommy Edman, Teoscar Hernandez and Kiké Hernandez are all sidelined with injuries. The leftovers lineup has put up a .215 batting average during the four-game losing streak.

“Shoot, I don’t think there’s a team in baseball that’s at full strength,” Dodgers manager Dave Roberts said. “I just feel that with the guys we have, we just have to play better. We’ve got to pitch better, we’ve got to defend better, we’ve got to take more competitive at-bats. And we’re just not doing any of those things right now.

“Yeah, you look back four or five days ago, things were more positive. But, this is a time for us to kind of look at ourselves and be better.”

Yamamoto was probably better than the debris from his outing would indicate, but he got in trouble from the start against the Brewers. He gave up a leadoff double to Sal Frelick and walked the next batter.

After a fly out and a ground out, though, Yamamoto was one pitch away from escaping with no damage. He got to a 2-and-2 count on Andrew Vaughn with three consecutive sliders then a fastball for a called strike. His fourth slider of the at-bat was up over the plate and Vaughn hammered it into the right field seats for a three-run home run.

The homer came in Vaughn’s first at-bat with the Brewers after being acquired in a trade with the Chicago White Sox and then getting promoted from Triple-A.

“That particular situation, Will (Smith) was calling it and I was following his signs,” Yamamoto said through his interpreter. “I think the (first) three sliders I threw were located pretty good. But that last one, I elevated it. It got away from me.”

Roberts wasn’t happy with the pitch sequencing during what proved to be the pivotal at-bat of the game, saying, “I think we went to the well one too many times” by throwing four sliders in five pitches to Vaughn.

“I mean, he hits in-zone spin really well, medium-speed. And he sees four of them in an at-bat, and the last one wasn’t a good one,” Roberts said, clearly frustrated. “You hate to say one pitch cost a game, which I don’t believe it does. But in that sense right there, that homer and then the walk and the error and the pitch count, he’s just stressed too much for me.”

The stress continued for Yamamoto when he gave up a single to Isaac Collins and walked Brice Turang. He looked like he was ready to escape the inning yet again when Caleb Durbin bounced a ground ball to Betts. But Betts’ throw to first base was in the dirt and Freddie Freeman couldn’t scoop it out. One run scored on the play and another scored when Andrew Monasterio dropped a bloop single into right field.

“I just made a bad throw, man, and there’s no excuses,” Betts said.

As far as his error extending the inning for Yamamoto and ultimately forcing Roberts to pull Yamamoto from the game, “I don’t care about the inning,” Betts said. “I just can’t make that – I can’t make an error right there. I don’t care if it’s nobody on, ninth inning, regardless of the situation, I need to make that play.”

That came on Yamamoto’s 41st – and final – pitch of the inning. Roberts pulled him after facing nine batters and retiring just two.

“My stuff wasn’t the best. But also at the same time, my stuff wasn’t too bad,” Yamamoto said. “I fell behind and ended up having a lot of baserunners. I was trying to locate my slider down and away (to Vaughn). However, it got away and then he hit it out.”

Yamamoto’s early exit turned Monday into an unplanned ‘bullpen game’ and the Dodgers’ relievers handled it well for awhile. Jack Dreyer and Lou Trivino combined to retire 10 batters in a row after Yamamoto left, but Will Klein gave up two runs in the fifth inning and Julian Fernandez (pitching in his first major-league game since 2021) served up a two-run home run to Christian Yelich in the seventh.

None of that mattered. The Dodgers’ offense stayed silent for the fourth consecutive game, managing just five hits in six innings against Brewers left-hander Freddy Peralta, himself an NL All-Star selection. They avoided a shutout with Esteury Ruiz’s two-out RBI single off of Brewers reliever Aaron Ashby – literally off him. Ashby deflected Ruiz’s ground ball back to the mound into right field.

“We haven’t hit very good. That’s pretty much it. We were just playing well, and it’s just a part of the season. It’s just not going to be perfect every day,” Betts said.

“You can’t replace All-Stars (like Muncy and Teoscar Hernandez). You can’t replace guys that have won MVP in postseason (Edman). You can’t replace those type of things. The next man has to step up and do what he can do. But I mean, you can’t replace those guys. You can only just have someone come step up and do their best.”