Yankee bats remain on fire as they demolish Brewers again

The 12-3 Yankee victory secured a series sweep

Box Score

The Brewers will never be more thankful to be leaving New York City.

A horror show of a series ended today with a beatdown that was only not more notable because it wasn’t quite as bad as yesterday’s beatdown. It was a different cast of pitchers but the same result this afternoon, as the New York Yankees jumped all over everything the Milwaukee Brewers threw at them as if they knew what was coming. The Brewers avoided the historic lows of yesterday but still allowed four homers and runs in five of the first seven innings on their way to a 12-3 loss. The 32 runs allowed in games two and three of this series were, according to the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel’s Curt Hogg, a franchise record, as were the 15 home runs allowed in a three-game series (which tied a major league record).

The Brewer offense looked pretty good in the top of the first, but the weather was not on their side. Brice Turang led off with a single to left off of Yankee starter Marcus Stroman, and then both Jackson Chourio and Christian Yelich hit deep fly balls that may have been homers yesterday, when it was 30 degrees warmer and the wind was blowing in the right direction. But today it was cold and the wind was blowing in, so both were caught deep in the outfield; Chourio’s, especially, was scalded, 107 mph off the bat and at a perfect angle, but he hit it to the deepest part of the ballpark and Cody Bellinger made a pretty easy catch. Yesterday, it might have gone 450 feet.

The Brewers weren’t done, though. After the two deep fly outs, Turang stole second and William Contreras walked, and then Sal Frelick came through with a solid single (103 mph exit velocity!) through the right side that gave the Brewers their first lead of the season.

It would be a short-lived lead. For the first time in the series, the Yankees didn’t hit a leadoff home run, but Paul Goldschmidt did leadoff with a hard single through the left side off of starter Aaron Civale, and after a Bellinger fly out, Aaron Judge hit his fourth home run of the series, a two-run shot that put the Yankees on top. It was a bad pitch, a 90 mph four-seamer just above the knees and right down the middle. It would be the last time in the game that the Brewers didn’t walk Judge.

Civale struck out Jazz Chisholm Jr. and narrowly avoided another home run when an Anthony Volpe shot to right was caught on the warning track. The Brewers, hoping for an answer, instead had a quick 1-2-3 inning in the top of the second. In the bottom of the inning, it was Ben Rice’s turn to jump on a Civale sinker for a homer. After another lifeless top of the third for the Brewer lineup, they decided to walk Judge with two out and nobody on… only for Chisholm to hit a two-out, two-run homer. The 14^th of the series for the Yankees. It was starting to feel like when the terrible high school baseball coach has the varsity team play the JV team to make some stupid, semi-abusive point to the JV kids.

Milwaukee finally got another runner on to lead off the fourth after Stroman had retired seven in a row in the form of a Contreras single. Then, with one out, a Brewer took advantage of the absurd Yankee Stadium dimensions, as Jake Bauers snuck one just over the wall and just inside the line in right field, just 331 feet. It was a helpful reminder that, despite everything, the Brewers were not out of this game, which headed to the bottom of the fourth with the Yankees up 5-3.

Civale was pulled after three innings (boy, I do not know what the Brewers are going to do in the next two games) and replaced by Tyler Alexander, pitching for the second time this season after he threw a scoreless inning on Thursday. Alexander did walk Jasson Dominguez with one out, but he was quickly erased on a Ben Rice double play, and Milwaukee got the three-batter inning they desperately needed.

The Brewers were unable to capitalize on the first scoreless inning from their pitching staff today, but they did chase Stroman after a two-out rocket of a single by Chourio (one that he hit so hard it almost made it to Dominguez in left field despite looking like a routine single off the bat). The Yankees brought in lefty Tim Hill to face Yelich, and he struck him out on three pitches.

Alexander was back out for the fifth and he continued his nice outing, as he retired the Yankees in order for the first time today. Contreras smoked one 114 mph to lead off the top of the sixth, but he hit it directly at Chisholm, who stuck out his glove and made the catch in a tough break. Hill then struck out Frelick and Bauers, and another zero was on the board.

Judge walked again to start the bottom of the sixth (the last pitch was definitely strike three, but the second-to-last pitch definitely should have been ball four, so it’s all even I guess), and Chisholm again followed that with a hit, this time a single. Volpe was retired on a deep fly out, but it moved both runners up a base, at which point Alexander was pulled from the game in favor of Jared Koenig. Koenig promptly threw a wild pitch which scored Judge, then gave up an RBI ground out to Austin Wells, and the Yankees were up 7-3 as Koenig allowed both inherited runners to score. Those runs were both charged to Alexander, but it felt a bit unjust; Alexander pitched as well today as any reliever has in this series, really.

Another 1-2-3 top of the seventh preceded another absurd Yankee inning. Joel Payamps was on for Koenig, and he gave up singles to Rice, Oswaldo Cabrera, and Goldschmidt to start his inning, the third of which scored the Yankees’ eighth run. Bellinger followed with a sac fly to make it nine, Judge walked again, and Chisholm followed with his second homer of the game and third of the series. Three times the Brewers walked Judge today; Chisholm, as the next batter after a Judge walk, went 3-for-3 with two homers and a single in those situations. It was 12-3, and there was still only one out.

Payamps struck out Volpe and was replaced after that, having thrown 33 pitches to get two outs. His replacement was the team’s closer, Trevor Megill, who hadn’t pitched yet this season and thus was sent out there to get some work in. He retired Wells on a fly out to end the inning, and it would be the only batter he faced today.

A Turang leadoff walk in the eighth went for naught, and in the bottom of the eighth, Bauers was on for his second pitching appearance in two days. He hit a guy and gave up a couple hits but somehow kept the Yankees off the board. It’s possible that Jake Bauers and his 68 mph heat is this team’s best relief pitcher. A Sal Frelick single was all the Brewers could muster in the top of the ninth, and the series mercifully ended.

It was a brutal series in New York, and the pitching looked absolutely terrible almost the whole time. We are level-headed fans here at Brew Crew Ball, so we’re going to remind ourselves that it is just three games of a long season, and there’s no way the pitchers can be this bad, and we still have every reason to believe this team will fight for a playoff spot. But, dang, this was the least fun opening weekend I can ever remember.

Milwaukee’s home opener is tomorrow at 1:10 p.m. against the Kansas City Royals. The team announced that Elvin Rodríguez will start tomorrow on his 27^th birthday, while Kris Bubic will take the hill for the Royals.