Brewers beat up on Braves’ bullpen, win 8-3

Three home runs power Brewers offense late

Box Score

Early in tonight’s game at American Family Field between the Milwaukee Brewers and Atlanta Braves, Milwaukee’s offense was showing some of the troubling signs that have plagued them over the last several weeks. But once Atlanta’s starter Grant Holmes, who was making his MLB debut as a starting pitcher (after 10 previous outings as a reliever), was finally removed from the game, the Brewers’ offense woke up. Pair that with a typically solid start from Colin Rea and a good evening for Milwaukee’s beleaguered bullpen, and the Brewers came away with a sorely-needed comfortable victory.

Rea worked through a quick and easy first inning, requiring only nine pitches to put down the Braves in order. But Holmes looked equally sharp, as he struck out Brice Turang, William Contreras, and Jake Bauers in order in the bottom of the first. Rea worked around a two-out Eddie Rosario single in the second and put up another zero.

Milwaukee’s second inning got off to a promising start. Willy Adames tapped an infield hit that turned into a little-league double when Sean Murphy made an ill-advised throw to first that got by first baseman Matt Olson, and Jackson Chourio followed with a hard-hit single through the left side of the infield. But Garrett Mitchell, Rhys Hoskins (who got two hanging sliders right down the middle), and Sal Frelick all struck out, and the Brewers were unable to even put a ball in play with men on the corners and nobody out.

Rea had another good inning in the third, as he recovered nicely after a leadoff walk to Orlando Arcia. Holmes struck out Joey Ortiz to start the bottom of the third, then finally got an out via something other than a strikeout when Turang flew out to center field. With two outs, Contreras hit a ball hard, 111.7 mph, but it was right at Arcia and Holmes was through three scoreless innings.

Marcell Ozuna broke the deadlock leading off the fourth. Rea left a cutter where he shouldn’t have left it, and Ozuna hit a monster shot—438 feet, 114 mph, off of the glass panels above the stands in left field. Rickie Weeks territory. It was his 31^st homer of the year. Rea nearly gave up another homer when Rosario hit one deep to center, but Mitchell made a jumping catch against the wall (it wasn’t going to go out, but it was close) and the inning was over with the Braves up 1-0.

Holmes, whose longest previous outing in the major leagues was 3 ¹⁄₃ innings, got two popouts and a medium-depth flyout from the middle of the Brewers order in the fourth and was through four scoreless. Atlanta added to their lead with another solo shot in the top of the fifth when Arcia hit one out convincingly to center.

Milwaukee answered with a solo home run of their own in the bottom of the fifth, courtesy of the suddenly-kind-of-hot Hoskins, his 18^th. That was all for the Brewers, but they’d halved the Braves lead and it was 2-1 after five.

Rea got Riley to pop out to start the sixth but walked Ozuna, and with one out in the fifth, his evening was over as Pat Murphy opted for lefty Hoby Milner to face Olson. Milner fell behind Olson but came back to strike him out, and then got Murphy to fly out to right field to end the inning. That closed the book on Rea, who finished with two runs, three hits, and two walks allowed with six strikeouts in 5 ¹⁄₃ innings.

Holmes was done after five, with just the one run allowed on Hoskins’ homer. The new pitcher for Atlanta was Jesse Chavez, who turns 41 in a couple of weeks, and who came in with a 1.79 ERA in 45 ¹⁄₃ innings. Turang started things against Chavez with a base knock to center, and he stole second with Contreras batting. Contreras walked, and Bauers hit a weak ground ball to second base on which Contreras was retired at second. That put runners at first and third with one out for Adames, who fell behind 0-2 and looked to be pressing. But he fooled me, and after fouling off a hanging slider on 0-2, he hit a bomb into deep left for a three-run homer that made it 4-2 Milwaukee. The inning ended on a weird play where Mitchell fouled a ball off of his foot but the umpires didn’t see it, and when Murphy indicated he’d like to challenge, he was told he was out of time, an event that would have been far more obnoxious if the Brewers were still behind.

Pinch hitter Ramón Laureano replaced Rosario to lead off the seventh and drew a walk. Milner was then replaced by Elvis Peguero, who immediately induced a 5-4-3 double play from Adam Duvall and a groundout from Arcia, and the Brewers put a zero on the board.

With one out in the bottom of the inning, Frelick reached second base on the game’s second infield-hit-plus-error. Ortiz, the next batter, hit a fly ball to center that froze Kelenic, who took a step in before realizing (with horror, I’m sure) that Ortiz had hit the ball much harder than he thought. It got over his head, and Ortiz got into third base on an RBI triple that made it 5-2. Milwaukee tried to add another with a squeeze bunt, but Turang popped it up, and the Gold Glover Olson made a nice catch. Ortiz made it back to third, but after an intentional walk to Contreras, Bauers grounded out to end the inning. But Milwaukee did what it has not done much of lately, which was tack on to their lead.

Just as news was breaking that the Brewers were making a move for a new starting pitcher, new reliever Nick Mears was on for his Brewers debut in the top of the eighth. Mears and his 97-mph fastball had no trouble with Atlanta: he got Nacho Alvarez Jr. on a popout, then struck out Kelenic and Riley and looked impressive doing it.

After Mears’ good inning, Milwaukee started to pile on in the bottom of the eighth against reliever Darius Vines. Adames led off with a solid single up the middle, and Chourio followed with a two-run shot on a low changeup, golfing it out over the left-field wall, his 12th of the season. Mitchell followed with another hard single, and the Braves threw the ball into the dugout and Mitchell was awarded third base. He scored when the next batter, Hoskins, hit a sac fly, and after another hard line-drive single from Frelick, Vines settled down and got out of the inning. (A weird quirk: Chourio’s home run, with an exit velocity of 98.1 mph, was actually the weakest of Milwaukee’s four hits in the inning.)

With the lead at six, Milwaukee turned to Bryse Wilson to finish this one off. He got the first two batters to ground out but left a meatball over the plate for Murphy, who hit Atlanta’s third homer of the game. But he got Laureano to ground out, and Milwaukee won 8-3.

What started out looking like it’d be another uncomfortable game for the Brewers’ offense ended up being a good night. The offense was led by Adames (3-for-4, a homer, two runs scored, three RBI) and Chourio (2-for-4, a homer, two RBI) but got contributions up and down the order, including Hoskins’ solo homer, two hits from Frelick, and Ortiz’s RBI triple. On the pitching side, Milwaukee got impressive outings from Peguero and Mears in addition to a scoreless appearance by Milner and 5 ¹⁄₃ very Colin Rea innings.

The Brewers will take their first crack at winning this series tomorrow night at 7:10 p.m. They haven’t yet announced a starter, and tonight’s trade acquisition Frankie Montas was scheduled to start for Cincinnati tomorrow… might we see him on the mound tomorrow night?