Game Discussion: Milwaukee Brewers (75-48) @ Los Angeles Dodgers (74-49)

The Brewers and Dodgers are two teams with struggling offenses who have had to fight for every run they’ve earned through the first two games of this four-game series. The teams have split the first two, with a combined score of 7-6 in favor of the Dodgers. Things won’t get easier for the Dodgers’ offense, at least, as today the Brewers send Jacob Misiorowski to the mound to face the high-powered Los Angeles lineup. The Dodgers counter with an All-Star of their own, Justin Wrobelski, who is having a bit of a breakout season in his third season in the big leagues.

Before we get to the pitching matchup, we’ve got a roster move to report, as the Brewers continue to struggle to find a last guy on the bench. After less than a week, the Jihwan Bae era in Milwaukee as over, as the Brewers have acquired the recently-DFAd Jonathan Ornelas from the Athletics for cash. Ornelas, 26, is a right-handed hitting infielder who was a third-round pick of the Rangers way back in 2018. He first appeared in a major-league game in 2023, but has only had sporadic action since then—he has just 71 plate appearances scattered over 38 games in four major-league seasons. This year, Ornelas went 2-for-12 in six games with the Athletics, though he spent most of the season in the Yankees’ system, where he hit a solid .299/.362/.480 in 75 games for Triple-A Scranton/Wilkes-Barre.

Back to the pitching matchup! Misiorowski is looking to bounce back off of a couple of starts that, while not remotely bad, weren’t as good as he surely would have liked. Miz pitched well on August 2nd against the Angels but his offense failed him, as the Brewers lost 3-0 in a game in which the young ace went seven innings, allowed two runs, and struck out ten. Last time against the Twins, Miz went six, struck out nine, and allowed three runs to the Twins, but the Brewers were able to win that game in ten innings. This will be Misiorowski’s first career start against the Dodgers, though he did of course throw five innings in game three of last year’s NLCS when he followed opener Aaron Ashby. In that game, Miz struck out nine and allowed only one earned run (and one further run of the unearned variety), but the Brewers could only score once.

Wrobleski, who turned 26 last month and is left-handed, is having a solid season: in 20 games (19 starts) and 120 1/3 innings, he’s got a 3.44 ERA and an 11-4 record. He isn’t striknig out a ton of batters this season (7.0 per nine innings), but he’s not walking them, either (2.0/9). That said, he does sport a FIP that’s quite a bit higher than his ERA (4.13) and his Statcast page has a lot of blue, so the Brewers will hope there’s some regression there. Wrobleski primarily uses a four-seamer/slider combination, though he’s got a bunch of other pitches that he’ll mix in occasionally.

Brice Turang remains out of the Brewers’ lineup, though Curt Hogg mentioned that he’ll do some work on the field today and is optimistic he won’t have to go on the IL. (That decision would likely come tomorrow, as they can only backdate an IL stint three days, and Turang has already missed three games.) Ornelas, the new guy, gets a start today—why not try anything to wake the offense up?—and will start at second base, giving Hamilton the evening off against the lefty. There are further shakeups to the batting order: Luis Lara, who is playing center field, moves up to the two-hole, while Andrew Vaughn (again at third base) bats third, Jake Bauers (in right field) hits fourth, and Gary Sánchez (first base) hits fifth. The lineup is rounded out by Christian Yelich, William Contreras, Joey Ortiz (at shortstop), and Ornelas.

First pitch is at 6:15 p.m., and recall that this game is being nationally televised on Fox rather than on Brewers TV. As always, it’ll be on the Brewers Radio Network as well.