Even in a lopsided loss, Dodgers remain stingy with walks

We interrupt the hand-wringing over the Dodgers’ goofy, sloppy, and sometimes just plain dumb play in Tuesday night’s 10-3 loss, to bring you an update of this continued good news:

Tuesday marked the 35^th consecutive game in which a Dodgers starter walked two or fewer batters.

Sure, Josh Beckett was not at his recent best, but he only walked one while giving up five runs in his five innings.

That was enough to extend the Dodgers’ streak of a starting pitcher giving up two or fewer walks to the longest the National League has seen since 1914.

We’re just a glass-is-half-full kinda blog.

It’s a pretty remarkable run, though in full disclosure the Twins had a 36-game streak over in the American League in 2005. This afternoon’s challenge for Hyun-Jin Ryu.

The Dodgers’ rotation remains the strength of the team. It has the major’s best ERA (3.05) and leads in wins (44). It’s been on a particularly strong run since the return of Clayton Kershaw in early May.

Of course, when runners are tagging up from third on a fly to medium left with no outs and then another runner is tagging late to advance from first and it all runs you into a weird triple play, it doesn’t matter how strong the rotation is.

“We have to play the scoreboard, we have to play the situation,” Manager Don Mattingly said. “Certain places you have to feel like you’re almost 100%, with guys in the order and things like that.”

The next thing you know, your hold on first place lasts only a couple of days.

“We have to continue to get better,” Mattingly said. “It was just one of those games that shows you you’re not where you want to be.”