Dodgers pitchers can't hold back Brewers, who beat L.A. for fifth time this month

The Dodgers’ recently slumping offense was better Saturday night.

But for a team that has struggled to gain traction and string together wins for almost a month, even a seven-run, 10-hit performance wasn’t quite enough.

In an 8-7 loss to the Milwaukee Brewers, the Dodgers put a badly-needed crooked number on the board early, scoring four runs in the bottom of the third to answer the Brewers four-run rally in the top half of the inning.

The Dodgers manufactured another run in the sixth, keeping the game close on a night Emmet Sheehan struggled in a season-worst start and the bullpen yielded three costly runs late. They even hit back-to-back home runs in the eighth, trimming what had grown to a three-run deficit back to one.

But every time it seemed like they were truly ready to break out, like their long-slumbering lineup was about to roar back to life, the Dodgers still came up ever-frustratingly short.

And no sequence epitomized those headaches like the end of the third.

Read more: Dave Roberts gives Mookie Betts a day off as season-long slump continues

After a Shohei Ohtani two-run homer, a Teoscar Hernández RBI double and a run-scoring wild pitch from Brewers starter Freddy Peralta, the Dodgers had the go-ahead run at third with no outs. They were 90 feet away from flipping the momentum entirely, and completing the kind of ruthless offensive onslaught that has evaded their $400-million roster for the last several weeks.

But then, in an immediate return to their uninspired form of late, the lineup went missing, squandering the opportunity with three quick outs — moments before the Brewers retook a lead their premium pitching staff wouldn’t again relinquish.

So goes life for the Dodgers these days, when even a largely productive day at the plate couldn’t prevent another series defeat to the Brewers or a ninth overall loss in their last 11 games.

Saturday could have been a more profound breakthrough. A game of not just incremental progress, but a total offensive turnaround.

Ohtani had a three-RBI day, starting with his towering 448-foot opposite-field blast. Hernández’s double was one of the best swings he has taken in the last couple months, a line drive into the right-center field gap that one-hopped off the wall. Tommy Edman broke an 0-for-29 skid with a sixth-inning single and eighth-inning home run. Miguel Rojas, one of the few who has impressed during the Dodgers’ recent struggles, followed Edman’s solo blast with one of his own in the next at-bat, completing a two-hit night that also included a walk.

But every time the Dodgers put the Brewers on the ropes, they failed to land the necessary knockout blow.

In a game they needed their lineup to pick up the slack left by a lackluster pitching performance, they repeatedly ran out of rope.

On the verge of taking the lead in the third, the Dodgers instead watched Andy Pages take a called third strike (which he reacted angrily to, despite the pitch being well in the zone), Michael Conforto ground out against a drawn-in infield and Edman hit a can of corn to left to retire the side.

The 4-4 tie was broken in the next inning, when Isaac Collins hit a leadoff home run over the short wall in right field to chase Dodgers starter Emmet Sheehan from the game.

Trailing by two in the sixth, the Dodgers threatened again. Edman and Rojas both singled, setting up Ohtani for an RBI knock in left field. But then Will Smith grounded out to second to retire the side.

The final tease came in the eighth, after the Brewers opened up an 8-5 lead.

Edman lifted his home run to the left-field bullpen. Rojas went deep on a similar trajectory.

That brought up Ohtani, representing the potential tying run. But he watched a soaring fly ball die at the warning track in center.

Close, but not enough. Too little, once again coming frustratingly too late.

The bats, of course, were not the Dodgers’ primary problem Saturday.

Sheehan saw his recently promising return from Tommy John surgery derailed in a five-run, three-plus inning outing. During the Brewers’ four-run third, he missed wildly with an array of breaking pitches, and was punished for several sliders that failed to induce a whiff.

The defense wasn’t sharp either, with both Hernández and Pages failing to cut off balls in the gaps at various points.

Read more: ‘As lucky as we could be.’ Dodgers’ Max Muncy already recovering better than expected

And generally, the Dodgers have reverted to the overall shoddy play that led to a seven-game losing streak shortly before the All-Star break (three of which came in Milwaukee to the Brewers, who can complete a six-game season sweep of the Dodgers on Sunday).

But the lack of consistently timely offense remains the most confounding issue for the Dodgers.

That was the case even before the game, when manager Dave Roberts gave Mookie Betts — the most glaring underperformer among Dodgers hitters this season — a day off just two games into the second half in hopes it would allow him to clear his mind and work on his swing.

It felt just as prescient in the aftermath of yet another defeat, with the team still searching for a winning formula amid its most disappointing stretch of the year.

This story originally appeared in Los Angeles Times.

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