Rea undone by long ball as Dodgers dispatch Brewers

L.A. hit four homers in the first four innings of easy 7-2 victory

Box Score

The Brewers dropped another one Tuesday night in Milwaukee, marking the team’s third consecutive loss as Colin Rea struggled against the Dodgers.

Rea got this one started against one of the scariest tops of the lineup in the history of baseball, and while Shohei Ohtani and Mookie Betts made solid contact, they both flew out, and Freddie Freeman popped out. Rea was successful in navigating those shark-infested waters on his first attempt, but it wouldn’t go so well later.

In the bottom of the first, the Brewers got an extra-base hit off of Dodgers starter Gavin Stone when Jackson Chourio hit a slicing line drive into right-center that Andy Pages wasn’t quite able to catch, but William Contreras hit a 103-mph grounder right at Enrique Hernández and Tyler Black struck out looking, and the first inning ended with no score.

In the top of the second, Rea had a small bout of Freddy Peralta Disease when he got ahead of Will Smith 0-2 with two outs but just couldn’t put him away; eventually, on the ninth pitch of the at-bat, Smith hooked a ball just inside the left field foul pole for a solo homer.

Milwaukee had something cooking in the bottom of the second when with one out Garrett Mitchell was hit by a pitch and Rhys Hoskins followed with a sneaky single into left. Then, with Sal Frelick at the plate, Stone spiked a curveball that got away from Smith and both runners advanced. But Frelick popped out to shallow left for the second out and Joey Ortiz struck out, and the Brewers failed to capitalize on a golden opportunity to tie the game.

Rea got the first two outs of the top of the third without any trouble but he left a splitter up high to Ohtani and reader, bad things happen when you do that. Ohtani obliterated it into the second deck in right field and the score was 2-0. Betts followed with a base hit, but Rea struck out Freeman to end the inning.

The Brewers started clawing back in the bottom of the third, when with two outs, William Contreras—who suddenly looks outstanding again—had one of his better at-bats this year. After fouling off four pitches with two strikes, Contreras turned on a sinker down and in and hit it way out to left, a towering solo shot to left. After three, it was Dodgers 2, Brewers 1.

But unfortunately for all of us, Rea unraveled in the fourth. Teoscar Hernández led off with a single, Gavin Lux followed with a two-run homer, Smith blooped a single, Miguel Rojas doubled, Enrique Hernández hit a sac fly, and Andy Pages homered. Five runs were in before the Brewers recorded the second out. Rea did finally get out of the inning a few batters later, but the damage was done, and the Dodgers were up 7-1.

Any hopes of a spicy Brewers answer and comeback attempt dwindled when Willy Adames, Mitchell, and Hoskins struck out in order in the bottom of the fourth.

Before Pages hit his homer in the fourth, Milwaukee had Jared Koenig warming quickly, but after the Dodgers opened up a six-run lead, Pat Murphy decided that getting as much as he could out of Rea and saving the bullpen was his top priority, so Rea was back out for the fifth. T. Hernández and Lux both made hard contact but flew out and then Smith—suddenly the greatest offensive player of all time for the second time this year—picked up his third hit of the game with a double down the left field line. He was just a triple away from the cycle through five innings. Rojas grounded out to second to end the rally, and Rea was through the fifth without further damage to the scoreline.

After that, things settled down and honestly, not much of note happened. Rea made it through a sixth inning and finished with seven runs allowed (tying a season high) on 10 hits. Stone was not really threatened again and exited the game after five. Landon Knack, a real professional baseball player and not a character invented for a board game about world travelers in the 1910s, was the pitcher after Stone. The Brewers tacked on a run with an RBI infield single from Ortiz in the seventh, but Knack completed four innings and allowed just the one run while picking up his first career save.

Elvis Peguero, Nick Mears, and Joe Ross all threw scoreless innings in relief tonight, but the Milwaukee offense capitulated after the Dodgers broke the game open versus Rea in the fourth. Jackson Chourio stung a few baseballs but had some bad luck getting them to drop. Contreras hit the baseball hard again and had the big homer before things got out of hand.

The Brewers are now 1-4 against the Dodgers this year and can no longer pass them in the standings in this series. We’ll see if they can recover tomorrow night, when Frankie Montas takes the hill for Milwaukee against a to-be-determined Dodgers starter.