When your team team goes 0 for 10 with runners in scoring position and leaves 15 runners stranded on base over the course of two games, and your starting pitcher puts up most of your team’s offense, it’s understandable that your manager might not be too happy about it. Yet this is exactly what happened on Tuesday night as the Dodgers dropped their second straight game to the Miami Marlins – this one a heartbreaking 6-3 loss after what started out to be another Clayton Kershaw masterpiece.

“Kersh put together the best at-bats, it seemed like, all night,” Dodgers manager Dave Roberts told reporters after his team’s second consecutive home loss to the Marlins. “Without those at-bats, I don’t know how much offense we had. [Marlins pitcher Tom] Koehler wasn’t sharp early and kind of gifted us a couple runs.”

Since returning from a very successful 4-2 road trip during which the Dodgers were 53 for 215 (.246) at the plate with five home runs, they have gone a collective 13 for 66 (.197) with two home runs at home. In Tuesday’s painful 6-3 loss, Dodgers ace Clayton Kershaw was the only guy with more than one hit – a second-inning “butcher boy” single to left and a fourth-inning RBI double to the gap in right-center field, thus accounting for one-third of the Dodgers six hits on the night.

“We’ve just got to get back to swinging at strikes and taking balls,” Roberts said. “If you look at the quality of at-bats, that’s something that up and down the lineup we have to get better.”

Kershaw was 2 for 4 on Tuesday night with a single and this RBI double. He would account for two of the Dodgers six hits. (Photo credit – Ron Cervenka)

But it wasn’t only the Dodgers lack of hitting that has them at risk of losing three in a row for the first time this season, it was also a very uncharacteristic Clayton Kershaw outing that quickly turned a dominate 3-0 sixth-inning shutout into a 5-3 deficit in a matter of seven-and-a-half minutes. During that frame, the three-time Cy Young award winner allowed five consecutive hits including a devastating three-run home run to Marlins slugger Giancarlo Stanton – his second in two nights and eighth in 17 career games at Dodger Stadium.

“It happened quick,” said Roberts. “The first five innings, you’d think he’d throw a shutout the way he was throwing the baseball, commanding it and was in complete control. It turned quickly.”

As expected, the guy most critical of Kershaw’s performance was Kershaw himself.

“Nothing really felt different [in the sixth inning]. They just got some hits there and strung them together,” Kershaw said. “Obviously, I missed my spot to Stanton. That’s what he does – he makes you pay for stuff like that. Then a couple two-strike hits too. Everything you’re not supposed to do, I kind of did that inning.”

In a matter of seven-and-a-half minutes, Kershaw’s 3-0 / one-hit shutout turned into a 5-3 deficit and eventual 6-3 loss – Kershaw’s first of the season. (Video capture courtesy of SportsNet LA)

The Dodgers are hoping to avoid their first three consecutive-game loss of the season on Wednesday night when they send left-hander Scott Kazmir (1-1, 6.63 ERA) to the mound against recently-called-up Marlins rookie left-hander Justin Nicolino, who will be making his major league debut.

One can only hope that the Dodgers offense wakes up and fast, as Kazmir – unlike Kershaw – has yet to collect a hit this season.