Game Thread #92: Milwaukee Brewers (51-40) vs. Los Angeles Dodgers (56-36)

An old-versus-new matchup headlines game two

The Brewers had a convincing victory in game one of this series when they chased Yoshinobu Yamamoto in the first inning of Monday night’s game. Tonight, they’ll look to extend the Dodgers’ skid to five games in a marquee pitching matchup between Clayton Kershaw, the living legend, and Jacob Misiorowski, the latest exciting new face on the block.

Kershaw is now 37 years old, and he is not nearly the player that had seven straight top-five Cy Young finishes between 2011 and 2017. But he can still get outs when he’s on the field; in nine starts this year, Kershaw has a 3.43 ERA (118 ERA+). He’s lost a lot of his stuff, which is borne out in his declining strikeout numbers (at 6.4 per nine innings this season, he’s three full strikeouts below where he was just two seasons ago) and rising walks (2.8 per nine would be a career high, just above the last two years). Kershaw is coming off a big emotional moment in his last start when he became the 20th player to strike out 3,000 batters, maybe the last major individual accomplishment of his career.

Misiorowski, meanwhile, is dealing with a letdown for the first time in his major league career. After he was better than anyone could possibly have imagined through his first three starts, Miz gave up five runs and couldn’t get out of the fourth inning against the Mets on Wednesday. Like the Mets, the Dodgers present a challenge for the young starter, so it will be interesting to see if he can bounce back while facing the considerable firepower in Los Angeles’s lineup.

There are a handful of Brewers injury updates to note today. As reported by Todd Rosiak:

• Rhys Hoskins is likely out for more than a month with his sprained thumb, and is expected back in mid-to-late August.
• After a brief setback, Blake Perkins is hoping to be back on his rehab assignment by this weekend
• Rob Zastryzny plans to throw this week in hopes of a late July return
• Robert Gasser (remember him?) has a live BP session this week and will start rehabbing in Arizona next week if all goes well. Given he hasn’t thrown in more than a year, he’ll come along slowly.

Andrew Vaughn is back in the lineup after his big debut homer yesterday. We’ll also see the return of Joey Ortiz, who was “benched” the last two games (though he came in late as a defensive replacement on Monday). Andruw Monasterio, though, is giving Caleb Durbin a night off as he starts for the third straight day. On the Dodger side, Will Smith is out of the lineup tonight as rookie mega-prospect Dalton Rushing gets the start behind the dish.

First pitch tonight is at 6:40 p.m. on FanDuel Sports Network Wisconsin and nation-wide on TBS. Of course, it will also be on the Brewers Radio Network.