Brewer bats go off in 17-2 beatdown of Rockies

Balanced offensive onslaught overwhelms Colorado pitching staff

Box Score

Sometimes, the best thing for a struggling offense is a trip to Coors Field. In a game that finally ended a weird nearly-six-year stretch in which the Brewers couldn’t win a series in Denver, the Milwaukee bats more than doubled up on the seven runs they scored yesterday and all but erased the run differential deficit they faced after their disastrous opening series against the Yankees. The Rockies are a bad team, but this was a true beatdown by the Milwaukee lineup.

Rockies starter Antonio Senzatela, who came in with a 0.00 ERA but troubling peripherals in two starts, had no problems in the first inning, as he got Brice Turang on a groundout, struck out Jackson Chourio, then made a fantastic play on a Christian Yelich tapper that looked destined to be an infield hit. On the other side, Tyler Alexander got the start for the Brewers coming off his excellent outing versus the Reds on Friday. He dealt with some traffic in the first, but worked around a walk to Sean Bouchard and a single to Ezequiel Tovar to put up a zero of his own.

The second went just like the first for Senzatela, as he struck out William Contreras, got Sal Frelick on a grounder to second, and struck out Rhys Hoskins after a long at-bat. The Rockies again got a couple of baserunners on against Alexander in the second, but he got out of the jam with an insane (and insanely lucky) behind-the-back snag of a line drive to end the inning. Both pitchers flashing the leather in this one!

Garrett Mitchell led off the third with the Brewers’ first hit, a double into the right field gap, but he was caught in a pickle on a ground ball by Oliver Dunn and became the first out between second and third. The Brewers had plenty more to come, though. Joey Ortiz followed with a walk and turned the lineup back over to Turang, who knocked a single through the left side to score Dunn and gave him a hit in each of the team’s first 12 games this season, putting him just one away from Dickie Thon’s record for a streak to start the season.

The Brewers had more to come, though. With two runners on, Jackson Chourio went deep to the opposite field and put one off the right field wall for a two-run double, his sixth of the season. Senzatela got the second out on another tapper back to the mound by Yelich, but with two strikes, William Contreras hit a 1-1 slider that didn’t get low enough out to right field. With his second homer in as many days, it seems like Contreras has finally busted his early season slump, and it gave the Brewers a 5-0 lead heading into the bottom of the third.

With his new five-run cushion, Alexander struck out the first two batters in the bottom of the third but gave up a two-out, two-strike homer to Ryan McMahon, and Hunter Goodman ambushed the next pitch for a base hit. Alexander recovered, though, and struck out Kyle Farmer to end the inning.

Senzatela’s fourth inning went much more smoothly, as he sat down Hoskins, Mitchell, and Dunn on consecutive groundouts. Kris Bryant (remember him?) led off the bottom of the inning with a double, and Alexander nearly got out of the inning unscathed but Brenton Doyle knocked Bryant in with a two-out RBI single. That came on Alexander’s 79th pitch, and that was when Pat Murphy decided to move to his bullpen; Elvis Peguero was summoned, and he needed just two pitches to get out of the inning on a groundout by Bouchard.

It wasn’t a good start for Alexander, but he more or less did what he needed to do. He finished with 3 ²⁄₃ innings, six hits, two walks, and three strikeouts, and with the help of his offense, he handed a 5-2 lead to his bullpen.

Ortiz led off the fifth with a base hit, and the Brewers got a second runner on when Turang hit one into the hole and Tovar knocked it down but couldn’t make a play—Turang was credited with his second hit of the game on a play that conceivably could have been ruled an error, though it’d have been a tough one. That brought the red-hot Chourio up with two runners on, and in something that felt eerily inevitable, Chourio jumped on the first pitch, a slider right where you don’t want to throw a slider, and hit it out to left field for a three-run homer.

Yelich followed with a bloop single—he’ll take what he can get at the moment—and after Contreras made hard contact but flew out to deep center, Senzatela was pulled in favor of Luis Peralta, who is indeed Freddy’s younger brother. (You can see it, too; they don’t really look alike, but on the mound, the lefty Luis is similarly sized and has basically a mirror-image version of Freddy’s delivery.)

Frelick reached when he hit what could easily have been a double play right at the reigning Gold Glove shortstop, Tovar, who strangely bobbled it and got nobody (that one was ruled an error). Things got even weirder when the Brewers attempted a double steal with Hoskins up and Goodman made an attempt to throw Yelich out at third; Goodman’s throwing hand hit Hoskins’ bat, and the ball then hit third base coach Jason Lane’s backside. It was, perhaps, the most I’ve seen a major league baseball game resemble pinball. Hoskins hit a sac fly to center that scored Yelich to make it 9-2, and then the bad Rockies defense continued as Mitchell hit a sharp grounder to Michael Toglia at first and won the race to first base on what should have been the third out. Frelick scored on the play, and Mitchell stole second base, but Dunn flew out to left and the inning finally ended.

Peguero momentarily lost his control and issued a couple of one-out walks in the bottom of the fifth, but he recovered and—with the help of a great diving play by Dunn on a Bryant grounder—got through the inning without surrendering a run. Ortiz led off the sixth with a walk, but Turang flew out to left and Chourio, though he hit the ball hard again (106 mph), hit into a double play to end the inning.

The game settled after that, at least for a while. The Brewers went to Nick Mears against his old team for the second straight night after he threw 13 pitches on Tuesday, and for the second straight night, he threw a perfect inning on 13 pitches. Angel Chivilli worked a quick top of the seventh, Jared Koenig worked around a walk in the bottom of the inning, and the Brewers went down in order against Tyler Kinley in the eighth. Grant Anderson was in on mop-up duty for the Brewers in the eighth, and he worked around Bryant’s second hit.

Flamethrower Seth Halvorsen was on for the Rockies in the ninth, and while he can throw very hard, his control leaves something to be desired; he walked Ortiz and Turang to start the inning, and Chourio should have been retired but Halvorsen threw the ball away when tossing to first on a ball Chourio dropped in front of the plate, and both runners scored while Chourio made it to second. In the game’s second moment of what felt like inevitability, Halvorsen then threw a splitter that didn’t split, and Yelich hit it 465 feet into the forest beyond the center field wall.

Halvorsen just couldn’t get anyone out, as Contreras followed Yelich with a walk and Frelick picked up his first hit of the night a couple pitches later. He finally struck out Hoskins, but he was nearly at 30 pitches, and that’s a lot for a guy who throws 100, so he was removed in favor of comic-book villain Victor Vodnik. He at least threw strikes, but he still had trouble finishing off the Brewers; after a strikeout by Mitchell, the Brewers got back-to-back singles by Dunn (which scored Contreras) and Ortiz (which scored Frelick and Dunn). Suddenly, the Brewers were up by fifteen. Vodnik finally got out of the inning, Anderson finished off the Rockies, and the game ended at 17-2.

It was a great day for a Milwaukee offense that tallied those 17 runs on 13 hits and five walks. Five Brewers had multiple hits, Yelich and Contreras each homered for the second straight day, Chourio added a homer as well and knocked in five runs, and Ortiz—with two singles and three walks—reached five times, scored thrice, and knocked in two runs. On the pitching side, four Brewer relievers (Peguero, Mears, Koenig, and Anderson) put together 5 ¹⁄₃ scoreless innings after the somewhat rocky start from Alexander.

The series concludes tomorrow afternoon at 2:10 p.m. CT when Quinn Priester will make his Brewers debut against Ryan Feltner.