Brewers prevail in 12 innings in wild 8-4 victory over Twins

Peralta, Chourio shine in memorable second-half opener

Box Score

The Milwaukee Brewers and Minnesota Twins returned to play tonight after the All-Star break, one day later than most of the league, with nearly identical records and looking to build on favorable playoff positioning. Both teams sent underperforming aces to the mound, with Milwaukee’s Freddy Peralta taking on Minnesota’s Pablo López, and they turned in a pitcher’s duel that would have lived up to the lofty expectations set on these two before the season started. But by the time this game was decided, both starters were long gone, as the teams ended up putting ten combined runs on the board across three wild extra innings.

A brief rain delay bumped tonight’s first pitch back 6:24 p.m., 14 minutes after the scheduled start time. It was a first inning that featured both sunlight and rain, but López’s sweeper would have worked in any weather. He struck out Brice Turang and William Contreras with that pitch before Christian Yelich tapped out weakly to shortstop. The second half was underway.

For those Brewer fans hoping to see a newly-efficient Peralta in his first start after the break, they were disappointed, though things could have been worse: after a two-out walk by Byron Buxton (in an at-bat which he was behind 1-2), Peralta was at 18 pitches. But rookie Brooks Lee did Peralta a favor and popped out on the first pitch.

A pesky one-out at-bat from Sal Frelick (in which he just missed the left field line on a 1-2 line drive and also appeared to strike out looking on a 2-2 pitch) ended with a nine-pitch walk, but he was thrown out trying to steal with two outs and the Brewers could otherwise get nothing going against López. Max Kepler battled for nine pitches before striking out to start the bottom of the second, and Peralta got through a 1-2-3 inning though he needed another 21 pitches to do it.

Garrett Mitchell led off the third with the Brewers’ first hit of the game, a double down the right field line. Joey Ortiz smoked a line drive to second base on the next pitch—107.6 mph—which was fielded on a hop by Edouard Julien, which was lucky for Mitchell as he likely would have been picked off had it been caught in the air. But Jackson Chourio followed by knocking the first pitch he saw into right field for an RBI single, and the Brewers had the first run of the game. Turang nearly homered with one out and Chourio on first, but Buxton made a nice catch on the warning track, and a Chourio steal of second was mooted by Contreras’s second strikeout.

Peralta came out looking for a shutdown inning, which haven’t come easily to him lately. It wasn’t easy, as Julien hit a one-out single, Larnach walked with two outs, and Buxton got ahead 3-0, but Buxton went after a 3-0 fastball and hit a shallow fly ball to center that ended the inning. But the efficiency was still missing: he was at 62 pitches through three.

Both pitchers settled in after that. López and Peralta each worked around singles in the fourth, and neither pitcher allowed a baserunner in the fifth or sixth. Peralta was over 80 pitches through four but worked much more efficiently in the fifth and sixth and was able to complete six scoreless innings in which he allowed just two hits and two walks while striking out eight. Milwaukee got a leadoff hit from Adames in the seventh, but López won a two-out battle with Mitchell to finish his start with his seven strong innings, despite exiting the game while behind.

Bryan Hudson was the first man out of a Milwaukee bullpen tasked with holding a 1-0 lead. Hudson, who appeared to tire out a bit as Milwaukee approached the break, gave up a two-out walk to Santana but was otherwise good and held the slim lead. Jorge Alcala took over for Minnesota in the top of the eighth, and he gave up a hard line-drive single to Chourio with one out, but had no other trouble and the Brewers were unable to add to their lead.

Hudson was back out in the bottom of the eighth—it’d taken him 13 pitches to get through the seventh—and pinch-hitter Austin Martin nearly took him deep to start the inning, but his 391-foot fly ball died on the warning track for the first out. Castro followed with a double to left (it might have been a close play at second base but Chourio bobbled it), and that was all for Hudson. With one out, a runner on second, and pinch-hitter Diego Castillo at the plate, Pat Murphy made the switch to Elvis Peguero. A wild pitch advanced Castro to third and brought the Brewers infield in; Castillo hit a ground ball right at Turang, but his throw home was a little off target, and Castro dove in under the tag. The call was confirmed after review, and the score was tied at one. Peguero struck out Buxton, but Lee kept the inning alive with a weakly-hit infield single. With the lefty Kepler at the plate, Murphy opted for Rob Zastryzny, who gave up a long fly ball but one that Mitchell tracked down in center. The game entered the ninth inning tied.

Yelich and Adames went down meekly against the Twins’ Griffin Jax to start the ninth. Frelick reached on a catcher’s interference with two outs, but he was picked off, his second out on the basepaths in the game. Joel Payamps was Murphy’s choice for the bottom of the ninth, which may have filled some with a sense of foreboding: he has been susceptible to the home run ball this season. Payamps got the first two outs with no trouble, but Manuel Margot (who had entered as a pinch hitter in the seventh inning) hit a bloop double down the right field line to put the winning run in scoring position. But Payamps came back to strike out Martin, and the game headed for extra innings.

Twins closer Jhoan Duran replaced Jax in the 10th with Frelick on second as the ghost runner and Hoskins at the plate. Hoskins got a pretty decent pitch to hit, but grounded out to third base and was unable to advance Frelick. Pinch-hitter Jake Bauers replaced Mitchell with one out, but he struck out, and then Ortiz struck out, and the Brewers failed to score in the top of the tenth.

Needing to prevent the Twins from getting their ghost runner home from second, the Brewers turned to their own closer, Trevor Megill. Castro went after Megill’s first pitch and hit a fly ball to center that wasn’t deep enough to advance the ghost runner, Martin, and that brought up Castillo, who knocked in the Twins’ only run on a fielder’s choice in the eighth. Megill struck Castillo out on three pitches, then intentionally walked Buxton and got Lee to ground out weakly to first base, and this one was headed to the eleventh.

Given another chance with a runner on second and nobody out, the Brewers would try this time against right-hander Cole Sands. Chourio, who was at this point 2-for-3 with the Brewers’ only RBI, went after the first pitch and popped out to shallow left field on a pitch that was way inside. But Milwaukee got a break: a Sands curveball in the dirt got away from Twins’ catcher Ryan Jeffers and Ortiz advanced to third with one out. In a play that eerily resembled the one the Twins scored on in the eighth, Turang hit a hard ground ball to second base; Martin appeared to have time to get Ortiz and threw home, but Ortiz avoided Jeffers’ tag and Milwaukee took a 2-1 lead.

The Brewers weren’t done, though: Contreras got a hold of an 0-2 pitch and knocked a long single off the right-field wall, putting runners on the corners, still with just one out. That ended the night for Sands, who was replaced by lefty Steven Okert, who was brought on for Yelich. In a surprise move, Yelich dropped down a bunt, and the Brewers scored on a safety squeeze to make it 3-1. It was a really nice bunt.

After Okert got out of the inning with no further damage, the Brewers turned to Jakob Junis, whose save on July 3rd was the second of his career, to protect their two-run lead. Junis got the first two outs on fly balls and got Santana down to his last strike, but Brewers fans are familiar with Santana’s late-game heroics: he got a 2-2 fastball and crushed it out to right field, tying the game at 3. Junis struck out Margot to end the inning and keep the game going.

Blake Perkins, who entered as a defensive substitute way back in the 10th, reached on an infield hit to start the 10th, and with runners on first and second and nobody out, a truly strange play occurred. Bauers came up to put down a sacrifice bunt, but popped it high in the air; Okert, still in the game, moved toward it, which prevented the third baseman, Lee, from catching it in the air. Bauers wasn’t running—he either thought it would be caught or that it would go foul, which it would have, but Okert touched it while it was still in fair territory. When it dropped, Bauers started running and ended up making it to first base; everyone was safe, and the bases were loaded with no outs.

That was all for Okert, who was relieved by Josh Staumont. Ortiz was the batter for Milwaukee, and he hit a fly ball to deep center that was plenty deep to score Frelick, and deep enough to get Perkins to third with one out. That brought up Chourio, who knocked his third hit of the game into center field to score another one for the Brewers. Chourio stole second, and Turang grounded a single through the right side of a pulled-in infield to score two more, which made it 7-3 Brewers. They got one more when Contreras followed with an RBI single, before a Yelich double play finally ended the inning.

Now with a five-run advantage, Junis was given a second chance at finishing this one. The Twins got a two-out RBI single from Castillo and Buxton hit one hard into left with two outs, but Chourio put an exclamation point on his big night with a diving catch to end the game.

There was very little offense through “regulation” in this one, but some things started happening in extra innings. Standout performers at the plate tonight included Chourio (3-for-5, two RBI, two stolen bases), Mitchell (1-for-3, a double, a run scored), Adames (2-for-4, a walk), and Contreras (2-for-6, an RBI), and Turang (1-for-6, two runs, three RBI).

Peralta’s start (which seems like it ended about four days ago) was weirdly encouraging: he has so typically been either very good or very bad this season. In this one, he was neither: the results were excellent (six scoreless innings), but he labored a bit even as he wasn’t giving up much contact. The bullpen mostly performed well behind him, especially Payamps and Megill.

The Twins and Brewers will be back at it in about 14 hours when they finish this quick two-gamer at 12:10 p.m. tomorrow afternoon, with Aaron Civale taking the hill for the Brewers against the Twins’ Joe Ryan.