Brewers can’t quite put together Opening Day comeback, fall 4-2 to Yankees

Milwaukee’s former stud closer almost blew it, but not quite

Box Score

The Milwaukee Brewers and New York Yankees opened their season today with a tightly contested game in which the Brewers very nearly overcame a three-run, ninth-inning deficit against their franchise legend former closer, Devin Williams. But it just wasn’t quite in the cards, as the top of the Milwaukee’s lineup struggled badly this afternoon and was unable to come through in the clutch.

The first inning set the tone for those top three hitters. The Brewers’ 21-year-old leadoff hitter, Jackson Chourio, may have been feeling the moment a bit, and struck out on three pitches to start the game. Christian Yelich and William Contreras grounded out and popped out, respectively, and it was a quick 1-2-3 first for Yankee starter Carlos Rodón.

The Yankees then jumped out to a quick early lead, as their catcher and new leadoff hitter Austin Wells hopped on Peralta’s third pitch, a fastball at the top of the zone, and punched it over the wall in right field for a leadoff homer; it was, apparently, the first leadoff home run by a catcher on Opening Day in the history of baseball. Peralta recovered nicely, though, and got Aaron Judge on a weak fly ball to left, Cody Bellinger on a strikeout, and Paul Goldschmidt on a grounder to short.

Milwaukee got their first hit of the season in the top of the second when Sal Frelick hit a two-strike pop-up in exactly the right spot (that 67.1-mph exit velocity is not going to help the people with concerns about Frelick’s offense), but Frelick was erased on a Joey Ortiz fielder’s choice and Garrett Mitchell grounded out to end the inning.

Peralta looked on his way to a quick second inning, but with two outs Anthony Volpe hit what appeared to be a fairly routine fly ball to right field. Instead, it found the wind and just kept going. It didn’t come back. That was the only blemish, but through two innings the Yankees had two homers to about the same spot in right field. And if you were wondering if New York was taking advantage of their short right field porch, you weren’t imagining it: Volpe’s homer would have been a homer in just eight of the other ballparks, and Wells’ was a homer only in Yankee Stadium.

But the Brewers got right back into it, from a source that you probably weren’t even expecting to be on the team. That would be today’s third baseman Vinny Capra, who tomahawked a 2-2 fastball out to left field for the game’s third homer. Brice Turang followed with a solid single through the left side of the infield, but Rodón retired the top three in Brewers’ lineup in order to end the inning with the Yankee lead at 2-1.

The bottom of the third was Peralta’s first really good inning. Oswaldo Cabrera ended an eight-pitch battle with a solid shot to center, but it held up for Mitchell, and then Wells and Judge struck out; both saw some nasty pitches.

The Yankees, who famously have never had any trouble with pitchers covering first base, let Frelick reach on a weak ground ball to first with one out, as he again defied the quality-of-contact gods. Rodón, who was late to the bag, went down pretty hard after stepping awkwardly while trying to make the play, but he stayed in the game. Frelick advanced to second on a weak groundout from Ortiz, but Mitchell also grounded out weakly and the inning was over.

Peralta worked around a Bellinger single in the bottom of the fourth, and Rodón mowed down the Brewers in the top of the fifth as he looked fully recovered from his fourth-inning wipeout. Ben Rice, the Yankee first baseman, got a hold of one with one out in the bottom of the fifth and hit it hard to right; thankfully it didn’t get high enough to fully benefit from that Yankee Stadium jet stream and it instead banged hard off the wall. It should have been a single, but Frelick slightly misplayed it, and Rice advanced to second (it was scored an error). Peralta had an easy path out of the inning, but he walked Wells in front of Judge, a cardinal sin. Still, he got away with a couple of fastballs that saw an uncomfortably large amount of the zone and struck Judge out to end the inning. That ended Peralta’s day: his final line was four hits, two runs, one walk, and eight strikeouts on 93 pitches in five innings.

Looking to capitalize on the momentum of Peralta’s strikeout, Yelich led off the sixth inning with the Brewers’ first walk of the game on a very close pitch that Rodón was not pleased to not get. Contreras nearly grounded into a double play but beat it out, and Hoskins followed with a long at-bat in which he fought off a whole bunch of pitches and finally walked on the 10th pitch of the sequence. That was Rodón’s 89th pitch, and with two batters on and one out, Aaron Boone decided to make a move to the bullpen.

The Yankees brought side-arming lefty Tim Hill in from the bullpen to face Frelick, and Frelick grounded into a fielder’s choice to shortstop in which Contreras, the lead runner, was retired at third. That gave Joey Ortiz a shot with two outs, and he continued the day’s theme of getting hits on poorly hit balls, this one of a swinging bunt fashion, that loaded the bases. With Mitchell due up, Murphy opted to play matchups and brought in pinch hitter Isaac Collins, who surely had no butterflies with the bases jacked in a one-run Opening Day game at Yankee Stadium. Home plate umpire Marvin Hudson did Collins no favors, as strikes one and two would probably have been overturned had Collins had the ability to challenge, but Collins battled back into the count and fouled off some two-strike pitches, but he grounded out to short on the ninth pitch of the at-bat and the Brewers’ golden opportunity passed.

The first pitcher out of the Milwaukee bullpen was the big lefty Bryan Hudson, and he struggled a bit with his command. Hudson issued a walk to the leadoff hitter Bellinger, struck out Goldschmidt, and then walked Jazz Chisholm Jr. as well. But after a visit from Chris Hook, Hudson got Jasson Dominguez to pop out on the first pitch and, after a long battle that included a passed ball, got Volpe to ground out.

Former Cub Mark Leiter Jr. replaced Hill in the top of the seventh, but Milwaukee did not have any better luck: Capra hit a solid grounder but was thrown out at first, and Turang and Chourio struck out, Chourio for the fourth time in the game.

The next Brewer to come out of the bullpen was Jared Koenig, who was fantastic last season. But he had a rough start today, as he walked Rice and gave up a solid single to Cabrera before falling behind Wells. Koenig did come back to get Wells, but got a bad break when Judge pulled a ball down the left field line that could have been a double play but instead hit the base and went over Capra’s head for a double, scoring Rice from second. The Yankees added another that they probably didn’t deserve when Bellinger hit a fly ball to shallow right, but the rough day continued for Chourio (now in right, with Frelick in center, after Mitchell was removed) when his throw home—which would have cut down Cabrera at home had it been on target—was up the line.

The second run made it 4-1 Yankees, and it chased Koenig from the game, as he was replaced by Joel Payamps. Goldschmidt nearly added another on a fly ball to right, but Chourio this time made a nice catch on a sinking line drive to end the inning. But with the way the Brewers offense was going today, the 4-1 lead felt insurmountable.

Luke Weaver, who finished last season as the Yankee closer but moved down a peg after the acquisition of Devin Williams, came on for the eighth. He didn’t have much trouble against the tough part of the Brewers’ order, as he started by striking out Yelich and getting Contreras on a weak ground ball. A two-out walk to Hoskins, his second, gave the Brewers a spark of life, but Frelick also struck out, and the Brewers were down to their last three outs.

Tyler Alexander made his Brewer debut in the bottom of the eighth, charged with keeping the deficit at three. Alexander gave up a one-out single to old friend Trent Grisham, but after the second out, Contreras threw out Grisham trying to steal second base to end the inning.

That set up an inevitable showdown with Williams, the former Brewer closer and one of the best relief pitchers in franchise history (at least, you know, in the regular season). But the Brewers were not going to let Williams off easy. The leadoff hitter, Ortiz, had a nice at-bat and rocketed a single into right, and then Williams left one of those airbenders right over the middle of the plate to Isaac Collins, and he smoked it deep into the right-field gap where it bounced off the warning track. Collins had a double, and Milwaukee had runners on second and third with nobody out.

The first batter to the plate to represent the tying run was pinch hitter Jake Bauers, replacing Capra, who Murphy likes in these “we need a homer” situations. Bauers did a good job laying off and Williams walked the bases loaded with nobody out, with Turang due up. Turang got ahead 3-1, fouled off a couple of pitches, and then hit a fly ball to pretty deep center field. That scored Ortiz from third and got Collins to third but did get an out on the board, and suddenly Chourio was up with a chance at redemption after a rough afternoon.

With Chourio up, Bauers made a somewhat unexpected successful steal of second base, which not only put the tying run in scoring position but eliminated the double play possibility. Chourio got deep into the count but struck out again on the eighth pitch of the at-bat—let’s just pretend that his Opening Day Platinum Sombrero was his little tribute to Bob Uecker. The Brewers still had a solid opportunity with Yelich up and two runners in scoring position, and he also worked into a deep count—Williams got up to a borderline insane 36 pitches—but Yelich struck out on a high fastball, and while it got interesting in the ninth, the Brewers dropped their opener.

It was a very rough day for the top of the Brewers’ lineup: Chourio, Yelich, and Contreras went a combined 0-for-13 with eight strikeouts and one walk, and it’s going to be tough for the Brewers to overcome that on most days. Frelick and Ortiz had two hits apiece (though they were mostly cheapies), and the team’s only extra-base hits came from, as I’m sure everyone expected, Isaac Collins and Vinny Capra. Hoskins didn’t have any hits, but after years of declining walk rates, it was nice to see him draw a couple.

Peralta overcame the two early homers to put together a pretty solid start. Bryan Hudson, Joel Payamps, and Tyler Alexander all had scoreless appearances, and though Koenig didn’t pitch particularly well, he had some misfortune and didn’t really deserve the two runs that ended up on his line.

Unfortunately, we all have to think about this game for almost two whole days before the Brewers play again, as they’re off tomorrow before playing game two at 12 p.m. CT on Saturday. Nestor Cortes will face his former team for the first time since the December trade, while the Yankees will send their biggest free agent acquisition, Max Fried, to the hill.