Cooked at home:
Davis injured striking out; club first to hit 20 losses at home
Kyle Lohse is bitten by the home run bug again and the Brewers fall to Arizona, 7-3, becoming the first team in the majors to lose 20 games at home this season.
The Milwaukee Brewers didn’t need people dressed as Darth Vader on Star Wars Day to experience the dark side at Miller Park.
This season has been quite dark enough.
And it only got darker Saturday as the Brewers stumbled through an ugly 7-3 loss to the Arizona Diamondbacks in which leftfielder Khris Davis suffered a knee injury that will require surgery.
Literally adding injury to insult, Davis tore the meniscus in his right knee as he swung and missed a pitch to strike out in the first inning. You can’t make this stuff up.
“Took an awkward swing. Knee over-rotated and got (a) meniscus tear,” said Davis, who has been scheduled for surgery Tuesday and will go on the 15-day disabled list. “I can’t really tell (how serious it is) until they go in there and clean it up.”
Asked to describe the current situation for both him and the team, Davis simply said, “The worst.” Indeed. Not only did the Brewers lose their seventh in a row and ninth in 10 games, they became the first team in the majors — no other club is close — to accumulate 20 losses at home. They hit the 50-game mark of the season with an astonishing 34 defeats overall.
This game included everything that has made the Brewers the worst team in the majors in 2015: a starting pitcher knocked out early by home runs, an offense unable to rough up a pitcher with a 5-plus earned run average and sloppy play in the field resulting in three er-
Sunday:
Diamondbacks (Anderson, 1-1) at Brewers (Wagner, 0-0), 1:10 p.m.
FSWis. AM-620
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rors.
“It is frustrating,” said starter Kyle Lohse, who was tagged for 11 hits, including two home runs by Paul Goldschmidt, and seven runs in only 3 innings.
“We’ve been in a really tough stretch here. Put it on myself, the starters. We have to get it done better. We have to give the team a better chance. I didn’t really give us much of a chance today.”
Lohse, the rotation’s No. 1 starter, seemed to have turned the corner a few weeks ago but now is headed in the wrong direction again with two consecutive awful outings. He fell to 3-6 with a 6.50 ERA while allowing 13 home runs, one of the highest totals in the majors.
“I had four or five starts that were either good or felt like they were really close to being good and then you take a huge step backwards today with a lack of command and not getting ahead of guys,” he said. “It was pretty much doing the opposite of everything that makes me successful.”
The way manager Craig Counsell saw it, Lohse did something that will get you beat every time — pitch defensively. Finesse pitchers cannot afford to pitch behind in the count because mistakes often are hit a long way, as Goldschmidt demonstrated twice.
“We needed a big performance today,” said Counsell. “We’d lost six in a row, so we needed a big performance and we didn’t get it. He struggled. It’s concerning. He’s not the aggressor right now. It’s like he’s playing defense the whole game.
“It feels like he’s not on the attack. We have to look at how we can get him better because it’s not working right now. I think it’s just, ‘Get on the attack. You be the aggressor and get on the attack.’
“We get in spots in the game where we have to make a pitch. Against hitters like (Goldschmidt), you have to make pitches. There’s no other way out.”
Making matters worse, the offense reverted to form after scoring two runs in the first two innings off Arizona starter Jeremy Hellickson, who entered the game with a 5.33 ERA. Once Lohse put the Brewers behind, 7-2, in the fourth inning, hitters started making quick outs and putting little pressure on Hellickson.
From innings three through eight, the Brewers collected two harmless singles. Whether they lose focus or heart after their starting pitcher buries them, it has been a familiar script this season.
“I thought after the first two innings that we were going to give Jeremy Hellickson a rough day,” said Counsell. “We made it very difficult for him the first two innings and I thought we’d continue to make it difficult.
“We got in a mode where it was ultra-aggressive. Now, with that lead, the pitcher is able to be ultra-aggressive. But that doesn’t change that we need to grind out at-bats. We did have some base-runners and you feel like one swing and you’re back in the game.”
But that swing never came. Dark days indeed.