ST. LOUIS — The Dodgers sent Bobby Miller down to Triple-A at midseason to get himself right.
They called him back this weekend – but not because he had completed the assignment.
Miller returned Saturday with most of the same problems still unsolved. His velocity is still down. His secondary pitches are erratic and he is vulnerable to giving up home runs.
“It was certainly a matter of circumstance,” Dodgers manager Dave Roberts said when asked before the game if Miller had earned his callback based on his performance in Triple-A where he gave up nine runs in 13 innings. “But I think that’s the way it happens a lot of times also.”
Miller gave up four runs on eight hits – including two home runs – in 4 ⅔ innings in his return start on Saturday and the Dodgers lost to the St. Louis Cardinals 5-2.
As if their weekend hadn’t already featured enough problems (with the move of Tyler Glasnow to the Injured List and the daily search for starting pitching), Freddie Freeman came out of the game in the eighth inning with a finger injury. Nolan Gorman’s ground ball in the sixth inning took a bad hop and caught Freeman in the middle finger of his right hand.
Freeman said X-rays were negative and pronounced himself “day to day.”
“I was a little nervous when my finger blew up like that,” he said, showing reporters the swollen finger.
“It just started getting bigger and bigger, and as you guys know, when you jam something, it just kind of swells and gets tight. It was kind of hurting to throw, so best to get me out and get some ice on it and see how we do the next day.”
Miller’s sophomore season has featured a swollen ERA (now 8.02) and decreased velocity, down from last year’s 99 mph average. That continued Saturday. After an early improvement, his fastball averaged 97.2 mph in the loss. He paired that with erratic command of his secondary pitches – he threw four wild pitches and fell behind in counts frequently.
Both of the home runs he allowed came when Cardinals hitters were able to sit on his fastball in a favorable account. Alec Burleson hit a 2-and-0 fastball for a two-run homer in the third inning and Masyn Wynn sent a 2-and-1 fastball over the center field fence for a solo homer in the fifth.
“It’s really just falling behind a few guys. I really think that was the weak spot tonight, just falling behind with early off-speed and fastballs yanking a couple,” Miller said. “Just focus on getting ‘Strike one’ on every single batter and it’s a different ballgame.”
That has been an ongoing search for Miller throughout a season that also featured a two-month stay on the Injured List with a shoulder injury.
“It’s just hard to pitch from behind and he was behind hitters all night,” Roberts said. “It took him, I think, 3 1/2 or 4 innings to find some semblance of a breaking ball. He couldn’t land a curveball (for a strike). … The changeup was a ball out of hand and then he started to get a little feel for it, but at that time I thought he was out of gas.
“I thought he finished much better than he started and look forward to the next one being even better.”
There will be a next one for Miller. He will continue in Glasnow’s spot.
“That’s the thought right now, yeah,” Roberts said. “But he has to continue to show some improvement, too.”
The Dodgers’ offense couldn’t keep up against Cardinals starter Andre Pallante. Shohei Ohtani did the only damage – with his legs and his bat.
Ohtani started the game by drawing a walk and manufacturing a run. He stole second (the first of two steals in the game, pushing his season total to 37), went to third on a fly out and scored on Freeman’s single to right.
In the fifth inning, he ripped a hanging curveball from Pallante for his 38th home run of the year, a drive that left his bat at 111.9 mph.
Ohtani has batted just .172 (11 for 64) in August but six of those hits have been home runs.
“It was an offspeed (pitch) at the heart of the plate, so it was something I was able to handle,” Ohtani said through his interpreter. “I do want to improve the other at bats, just overall quality.”
The Dodgers had just two other hits (singles by Miguel Rojas and Kevin Kiermaier in the second inning) in seven innings against Pallante. The Dodgers didn’t have a baserunner after Rojas’ leadoff walk in the seventh inning.
“I thought the challenge was his fastball was doing some different things,” Roberts said of Pallante. “It was cutting and it was sinking and then the four-seamer ride and we certainly couldn’t barrel anything up. He was throwing strikes against the right-hander and left-handers. We just couldn’t build innings.
“I think it’s one of those things you have to give him credit tonight because I do think the fastball had some late movement that was missing bats. You saw some funky swings with the fastball that for our guys, you typically don’t see that.”