It can start to mess with a pitcher’s psyche.
The lack of run support can be maddening. It can distort performance and magnify mistakes, pushing the margin of error down to zero.
Just ask Clayton Kershaw, who had lost three consecutive games for the first time in his major league career despite a 3.15 ERA, a .219 opponents’ batting average and a 28-3 strikeout-to-walk ratio in those three starts.
“He just has to keep doing what he’s doing,” Dodgers manager Don Mattingly said before Friday night’s game. “The rest of the guys have to do their part and put some runs on the board.