Facing future Hall of Famer Clayton Kershaw was 'not a great time' for the Brewers

So much for the 14-5 start.

The Milwaukee Brewers (20-17), after winning five of their first six series of the season, have reversed course and now dropped five of their last six following an 8-1 rout at the hands of the Los Angeles Dodgers on Wednesday at American Family Field.

"We’ve got a lot of trust in the guys in this clubhouse," Brewers infielder Mike Brosseau said. "It’s kind of just the ups and downs of this season. Got to ride the high waves and try to jump off the low ones as soon as possible. We started off hot out of the gate and kind of have been going through it the last couple of weeks or so. Good teams right the ship when it needs to be righted and that’s what we plan to do."

Here are three takeaways from the loss.

Vintage Clayton Kershaw performance shuts down the Brewers

Wade Miley summed up the challenge of facing Clayton Kershaw about as succinctly as possible.

“He’s the best lefty we’ve seen in this game probably since dadgum (Sandy) Koufax,” Miley said.

Brosseau, who actually had the unpleasantry of facing Kershaw on Wednesday, used a few more words as he laid out the challenge of trying to hit against him.

“(Location) is a big reason why he’s done what he’s done in his career,” Brosseau said. “He’s got that cutter/slider that kind of starts inner third and ends up off the plate, and he works that big curveball in. He can still gear up that fastball pretty good and it’s got good spin and good ride at the top of the zone. When he has that placement and that command, he’s dialed in every time he’s out there.

“...He’s got really good tunneling. When that curveball pops a little bit out of the hand, it’s almost like an auto-take and then it just drops right back in the zone. Other than that, the slider/cutter and the fastball both have the same tunneling and looks the same most of the time to the plate.

Kershaw carved up the Brewers over seven one-run innings to lead the Dodgers to the series win – a familiar sight for the team whose .604 win percentage against the Brewers since 2016 the best of any team.

Kershaw had his fastball-slider pairing operating in vintage form, mixing in the occasional loopy curve – which is perhaps his most famous pitch – to keep everyone guessing at the plate. To score on the future first-ballot member of Cooperstown it took an impressive individual effort at the plate, as William Contreras drove a slider six inches off the inside corner down the line for a line-drive homer to left in the fourth.

Luke Voit just missed a homer of his own with a double to center in the fifth, but aside from that the only base runners for Milwaukee came on a trio of lightly-hit singles.

“Not a great time,” Christian Yelich opined before the game about hitting against Kershaw.

Yelich said that even as the player with the highest active batting average off the 35-year-old in all of baseball. You can imagine, then, how the experience rates for Yelich’s teammates who were a combined 1 for 37 with 23 strikeouts against Kershaw coming in.

After Wednesday, not many five-star reviews are going to be left.

Wade Miley’s day was going great until it wasn’t

For the first time all season, Miley made too many mistakes.

The Brewers lefty’s afternoon went from sharp to poor in a flash, as he went from retiring the first 10 Dodgers hitters he faced to back to back homers serving as the floodgates for seven earned runs in five innings of work.

A pair of one-out walks to the Dodgers’ No. 8 and 9 hitters, Trayce Thompson and Austin Barnes, paved the way for two more runs in the fifth.

“You have to execute,” Miley said. “At the end of the day I didn’t execute pitches out of the stretch. Even the two solo homers, you live with those. After that, I got in the stretch and had poorly executed pitches and obviously the results weren’t there. Too many walks in situations where I need to go after guys.”

Then the first three Dodgers reached against Miley to open the sixth, including a two-run blast by Miguel Vargas that made it 6-1, Los Angeles. That spelled the end of Miley’s day. He allowed three homers and three walks after giving up only two and six all year, respectively, coming in.

“I made some mistakes today. I pitched like crap,” Miley said. “I got going off good and it just didn’t work out. Looked at the stuff I did, didn’t like it and move on. There’s nothing I can do about it right now.”

William Contreras is finding his groove

Contreras is starting to hit the ball in the air more, and the results are coming along with it.

After not hitting his first home run until April 24, Contreras now has three long balls in his last 12 games and 49 plate appearances to go along with three doubles.

Eleven of Contreras’ 21 batted balls in May have been either line drives or home runs. In April, that number was just 45.2%, with a remarkably low fly-ball rate of 24.2%.

Contreras has always had relatively high ground ball rates but does his damage by making the most of balls in the air. He’s getting back to that profile again at the plate, which is a good sign for an offense in need of consistent power from someone other than Rowdy Tellez.

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This article originally appeared on Milwaukee Journal Sentinel: Clayton Kershaw shuts down Brewers in Dodgers' 8-1 win