Dodgers’ Rafael Furcal is frustrated with his hitting

No one is more frustrated with Rafael Furcal’s lack of hitting lately than Rafael Furcal.

“I feel so bad, especially for my fans and for my team, because I don’t like to lose,” the Dodgers’ veteran shortstop said.

Entering Saturday’s game, Furcal was five for 49 (.102) since July 3, when he came off his latest stint on the disabled list for a strained left side muscle. None of the five hits was for extra bases.

Furcal, 33, also was on the DL earlier this year for a broken left thumb and has missed 63 games overall this season.

Now, “my body feels good, I feel good,” he said. But he added, “I’ve been asking the same question: ‘What happened with me [at the plate]?’ ”

“I’ve been coming early every day, trying to work on my swing, to hit the ball during [batting practice] the way I want to hit it,” said Furcal, the team’s highest-paid player with a salary of $12 million.

Is he trying too hard? “I think so,” Furcal replied, adding that Dodgers Manager Don Mattingly and others have urged him to stop putting too much pressure on himself.

But, Furcal added, “sometimes I go to home plate, try to calm down, see more pitches and then I see three pitches right down the middle.”

Mattingly mounted a rousing defense of Furcal when the club was in Phoenix last week, saying that while Furcal “might not be the player he was five, six years ago . . . that doesn’t mean he can’t play.”

The manager reiterated Saturday that “I know he’s trying hard, I know he takes it to heart when he doesn’t do well, so [we] just try to keep him upbeat and hope he catches fire.”

Furcal, batting in his usual lead-off spot, lined a single in his first at-bat Saturday night against the Washington Nationals and scored the Dodgers’ first run.

Kemp cools a bit

Matt Kemp also has struggled at the plate somewhat since the All-Star game July 12, when Kemp was a starting outfielder for the National League.

Kemp entered Saturday’s game batting .222 (six for 27) since the All-Star break, with five runs batted in and two home runs. The center fielder still was batting .306, with 24 home runs and 72 RBIs, for the season.

Asked about Kemp’s recent batting, Mattingly said, “I feel like Matt’s trying to do so much for this club [and] sometimes trying to do too much is not necessarily the best thing.”

Regardless, there are “stretches where they hit a seven-to-10-day period where they struggle, and that’s going to happen a couple times a year for the best guys,” Mattingly said.

Short hops

Hall of Fame Dodgers pitcher Don Drysdale would have been 75 on Saturday, and his sons D.J. and Darren threw out the game’s ceremonial first pitches. Drysdale died in 1993 at age 56. Dodgers reliever Hong-Chih Kuo turned 30 on Saturday.

james.peltz@latimes.com