Game Thread #128: Milwaukee Brewers (73-54) @ Oakland Athletics (55-73)

Brewers open their last series in Oakland behind Aaron Civale

After a couple of rough losses in a row in St. Louis, the Milwaukee Brewers continue their road trip tonight in the Oakland Coliseum, in what will be their last ever series against the Athletics in Oakland. (Probably.)

It has been an atypically bad couple of days for the Brewer bullpen, who surrendered a ninth-inning lead on Wednesday and couldn’t maintain a 0-0 tie on Thursday (no thanks to the umpiring crew). The Brewers will look to bounce back tonight behind starter Aaron Civale, who is coming off two good starts in a row—he last pitched a week ago versus Cleveland, and tossed six shutout innings.

On the other side, the A’s will counter with lefty J.P. Sears, who has been their best starting pitcher this season. That’s not saying a ton: he has a 4.15 ERA (95 ERA+) and 4.42 FIP in 141 innings, but that’s competence that the Athletics have found hard to come by the last few years.

Blake Perkins is back in the lineup for Milwaukee and Pat Murphy, looking to shake things up, has him in the two-hole tonight behind leadoff man Jackson Chourio. Gary Sánchez has tonight’s DH duty, and Andruw Monasterio is in at second base for Brice Turang. Oakland has a few potent bats in their lineup, most notably Brent Rooker, who comes in with a 163 OPS+ and was a big snub on the All-Star team.

Let’s play some West Coast baseball! First pitch is at 8:40 p.m. CT on Bally Sports Wisconsin and the Brewers Radio Network.