Peralta pitched through a difficult start, fighting his way through five innings on 98 pitches, but he remained steady in the most troublesome moments. The very start of the game signaled the chaos that would come, even as the scoreline remained low.
He struck out his first two batters, but his third batter, Agustin Ramirez, took a ball deep to centerfield. Blake Perkins made an excellent jumping effort to block the ball, but without catching it, ensured it couldn’t sneak past the wall. It
counted as a double after the umpire crew reviewed the hit, claiming that their preemptive home run call disrupted the defense. It took a run off the board from Miami while getting the Brewers crowd excited, and they would continue their uproar over the next few innings. Peralta would walk another batter, but recorded the final out to escape the first inning unscathed.
In the second inning, Peralta walked the leadoff batter. A looping ball into the shallow outfield proved to be a difficult play for Joey Ortiz, who got his glove on the ball, but understandably wasn’t able to secure the out. It left runners on first and second, but Ortiz made up for it with an impressive, ranging play to his right, making a difficult throw to second base to record a force out. Peralta then struck out the final batter to once again end a dangerous threat.
The only run that Peralta conceded came in the third inning against Kyle Stowers, the Marlins best power threat this season. Stowers took a two-out, two-strike pitch out for a home run against Peralta’s changeup.
Despite all these tense innings and difficult counts, Peralta finished five innings with one run allowed, at times dominating the Marlins lineup, such as recording five outs in a row all in the form of a strikeout, despite allowing the home run, a double, and a walk in between. His strikeout stuff helped ensure those baserunners never came around. In all, Peralta totaled nine strikeouts while generating 17 whiffs from the Miami lineup.
A whiff fest for @FreddyPeraltaRD pic.twitter.com/ektizWTIpQ
— Milwaukee Brewers (@Brewers) July 25, 2025
Peralta’s perseverance gave the Brewers a chance to stay in the game, despite never finding consistent momentum against Marlins starter Cal Quantrill. Milwaukee didn’t get a runner into scoring position until the fourth inning when Jackson Chourio hit a solo home run to tie the game at 1-1. After finding himself in two-out, two-strike situation, Chourio jumped on a splitter that Quantrill left floating in the zone.
The Kid gets his revenge @Bryanchourio11 https://t.co/k7VieFC2rA pic.twitter.com/9dv0RZv4cj
— Milwaukee Brewers (@Brewers) July 25, 2025
Across five innings, Quantrill gave up that one run while allowing just three hits and no walks. Quantrill only struck out four batters, but still found success against the Milwaukee lineup. The Marlins decided to pull Quantrill anyway after reaching merely 65 pitches.
For the Brewers, after resorting to their bullpen, the margins continued to be slim. Aaron Ashby replaced Freddy Peralta and surrendered a leadoff double to Otto Lopez. Lopez would advance to third on a sacrifice bunt. The next batter would hit a weak ball back to the mound, but Ashby nearly made a disastrous throw that would have given Miami a free run, but William Contreras made a last-minute save to catch Lopez in a rundown. After walking another batter, Ashby would eventually record the third out on a swinging strikeout to keep the game equal at 1-1.
Ashby’s struggles continued the next inning as Miami found the breakout hit to take command of the game. Joey Ortiz made an athletic play up the middle to keep the ball in the infield, but on the spinning throw, couldn’t catch the speedy Xavier Edwards at first. After surrendering that leadoff single, Ashby made a wild pickoff throw that gave away a free base.
The Brewers summoned Nick Mears with Lopez on second base and out out, but Mears ran into struggles of his own. He walked Ramirez after starting off with an 0-2 count. Another full count led to a walk to Stowers on a pitch just inside.
After falling behind 3-1 to Lopez, Mears tried forcing a fastball over the middle of the plate, but Lopez took it a for a liner into the outfield gap. Perkins mishandled the ball as Lopez sped into third base with a bases-clearing, three-run triple. A sacrifice fly from Liam Hicks pushed the Marlins led to 5-1.
The Brewers nearly jumpstarted a rally in the seventh when Anthony Bender entered in relief for Miami. The first important moment came when Chourio took another ball to the warning track, but it fell just short for an easy out.
The next batter, Collins, hit a slider at the bottom of the zone for a double. Tyler Black entered as a pinch-hitter for Andrew Vaughn and worked a walk to continue pressuring Bender. It was the first time the Brewers had multiple baserunners in an inning.
The final two batters of the inning couldn’t manufacture any runs as Perkins hit into a groundout and Durbin struck out to send the game to the eighth frame with Milwaukee trailing 5-1.
Milwaukee’s bullpen worked a scoreless eighth and ninth inning, despite Black erroring in the ninth, the team’s third of the game.
As the Brewers looked to make an impact after failing to gain much traction throughout the entirety of the game, Christian Yelich led off the bottom of the ninth with a walk. Collins walked too against reliever Calvin Faucher.
Black only managed to scrape the top of the ball, hitting a weak grounder back to Faucher, but the two runners advanced into scoring position. That sent Perkins up to the plate, who took a borderline pitch for a strikeout to end the game.
The Marlins have been a much more effective team lately, and they proved themselves in what was often a tense game with little room for error. The Brewers played a sloppy game and struggled to string together an offensive rally. It was a disappointing finish after Peralta’s tenacious start, but it’s the first game in a series that Milwaukee is capable of winning.
The team is back on the field tomorrow with first pitch at 6:10 p.m. CT, and it will be on FanDuel Sports Wisconsin and the Brewers Radio Network.
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