Through five-and-a-half innings, the Brewers and Twins played a wild, back-and-forth game, a game marred by bad defense and the toughest outing of the season for Brewers rookie starter Shane Drohan. But when the Twins’ beleagured but retooled bullpen took over, the Brewer bats couldn’t come up with a needed clutch hit, and Minnesota walked away with an 8-6 victory in the first game of this three-game series.
Drohan took a minute to settle in and walked the leadoff hitter, Austin Martin, on
five pitches. Drohan got into the evening with strikeouts of Ryan Jeffers and Royce Lewis, though Martin stole second during Jeffers’ at-bat. With two out, Josh Bell hit a soft line drive up the middle that looked destined for center field, but Brice Turang was able to cut it off and almost threw the lead-footed Bell out at first. Turang didn’t get the out but he saved a run, and one batter later, Kody Clemens flew out to left to end a scoreless top of the first.
Minnesota starter Zebby Matthews, just recalled from Triple-A St. Paul today, started his evening with a strikeout of Turang. But he wasn’t so fortunate against the suddenly red-hot Jackson Chourio, who hit a 108 mph shot off the batter’s eye in center field to get the evening’s scoring started. Jake Bauers and William Contreras were retired to end the inning, but the Brewers had an early 1-0 lead.
Drohan issued his second free pass to start the second inning, this one to Luke Keaschall. But the Minnesota debutante Kaelen Culpepper popped out to first, old friend Victor Caratini struck out, and Ryan Kreidler grounded out to short.
After a Garrett Mitchell groundout to start the second, Christian Yelich scalded a line drive into the gap, which Clemens was able to cut off to hold Yelich to a single. After a Luis Lara walk pushed Yelich up to second, Matthews should’ve gotten out of the inning after a Cooper Pratt flyout to right and a weak ground ball to second from David Hamilton, but Lewis whiffed on the ground ball—a really bad error—and Yelich was able to score as the ball rolled into right field. The damage wasn’t done, though; Turang followed Hamilton with a screamer of a double into the right-field corner that scored two more. Chourio grounded out to end the inning, but Milwaukee had a 4-0 lead after two.
Drohan walked his third batter with one out in the third, the first time he’d walked three since June 24. Lewis almost hit a ball out in the left corner, but it hung up enough for Chourio to make the catch on the warning track. Josh Bell, though, didn’t get under one like Lewis did—he got a 1-1 sinker right down the middle and crushed it to the back of the Brewer bullpen for a two-run homer. Clemens grounded out to end the inning but the Twins had halved the lead.
After a very quick bottom of the third, the Twins built on their second-inning momentum. With one out, Kaelen Culpepper—the twins #2 prospect, playing in his major-league debut—got up to an 0-2 fastball that didn’t quite get high enough and hit it out for his first big-league hit, a solo homer. Caratini then walked, Kreidler bunted for a hit, and Martin lined a ball hard into left. Caratin scored easily, but a well-executed relay from Chourio to Pratt to Contreras cut down Kreidler at the plate, keeping the score tied. Jeffers popped out to end the inning, but the Brewers’ early lead had disappeared.
The Brewers got a one-out single from Lara in the bottom of the fourth, but Pratt hit into a 3-4-1 double play that ended the inning. Drohan, still pitching after his tough fourth inning, gave up back-to-back singles to Lewis and Bell to start the fifth, and when Clemens dropped a bunt down—presumably intended to be a sacrifice—Drohan slipped and couldn’t field it, which loaded the bases with nobody out.
Keaschall swung at the first pitch he saw and managed a jam-shot single into left that scored one and gave the Twins a 5-4 lead. Culpepper was next, and he grounded into a 6-4-3 double play, which scored another run but gave the Brewers a path out of the inning; Caratini nearly added another run when he hit a solid line drive to center, but Mitchell caught it on the run. The inning was finally over, but the Twins had turned a 4-0 deficit into a 6-4 lead after scoring two runs in each of the third, fourth, and fifth innings.
Looking for a quick response, Hamilton gave the Brewers a leadoff baserunner in the bottom of the inning when he hit a soft grounder to short—Culpepper misplayed it, but likely wouldn’t have had a play anyway, and Hamilton was given an infield hit. Turang, who was next, lined a single through the middle on a 1-2 pitch which advanced Hamilton to third and gave the Brewers runners on the corners with no outs for Chourio, their hottest hitter.
Matthews was either rattled or afraid of Chourio or both, and he walked him on four pitches, and just like the Twins in the top of the inning, the Brewers had the bases juiced with no outs. Bauers nearly blew the roof of the place when he hit a ball hard to deep left, but Martin caught it going back on the warning track. Hamilton tagged and scored, but it was a little bit of a letdown that it wasn’t more.
Milwaukee still had a good opportunity with runners on first and second and one out. Contreras hit a fly ball to center that was caught by Keaschall but which advanced both runners, and Mitchell had a chance with two out and two runners in scoring position. What followed was a great example of how speed can be a game-changing tool: Mitchell hit a ground ball to short, and Culpepper fielded it just awkwardly enough that he needed an extra step on his throw; Mitchell, blazing down the line, beat the throw to first and the Brewers tied the game. A Yelich strikeout ended the inning, but this wild one was 6-6 after five.
Antonio Senzatela was out of the Brewer bullpen, but he wasn’t able to settle the game down. After picking up two quick outs, Jeffers and Lewis hit back-to-back doubles to put the Twins back in the lead, 7-6. Bell, already with three hits in the game, came up and on a 2-2 pitch lined a single into left that scored Lewis from second. It was just the sixth inning, and Bell had four hits and three RBI. Clemens hit a hard ground ball to Turang that ended the inning, but the Twins had scored two runs for the fourth straight inning.
Matthews came out for the sixth, but before the inning started, Derek Shelton and the Twins’ trainer fetched him and he came out of the game. One of Minnesota’s “deadline” pickups (he was actually traded on July 10th), righty Tommy Nance, replaced him. He started against the two Brewer rookies. Lara, in a beautiful at-bat, battled back from 0-2 to a full count and fouled off pitches until, on the 10th pitch, he singled up the middle. Pratt got up 3-1 and took a high cutter that was called a strike but should’ve been ball four, which was followed by a grounder to third—with Lara running on the play, Kreidler’s only play was at first.
Hamilton, on a 2-2 pitch that was pretty clearly a strike, burned the Brewers’ second challenge right after Jeffers’ burned the Twins’ second. In any case, Hamilton was out, and the Twins turned to another new acquisition, AJ Minter, to face Turang—and Minter struck him out on three pitches.
Bryse Wilson finally gave the Brewers a perfect inning in the top of the seventh, their first of the game. Another new Twins pickup, Jeff Hoffman, entered in the bottom of the seventh. Bauers drew a one-out walk, but was erased on a Contreras fielder’s choice. With Contreras at first and two out, Mitchell drew a walk—a walk that would surely have been a strikeout, had Jeffers had a challenge to use. On the first pitch to Yelich, Hoffman yanked a slider that hit Yelich in the foot to load the bases with two outs for Lara. Anticlimactically, Lara struck out on three pitches, and the Twins maintained their 8-6 lead into the eighth.
Kreidler started the Twins’ eighth with a single up the middle, but Martin made the first out on an attempted bunt that he popped up to Hamilton. A strikeout of Jeffers and a pop out by Lewis ended Wilson’s second scoreless inning.
Hamilton hit a one-out hustle double in the bottom of the eighth to give the top of the Brewers’ order a scoring opportunity against the new Minnesota hurler, Andrew Morris. Turang, up next, drew a seven-pitch walk to put two on for Chourio, but on the first pitch of the inning Chourio hit into about as easy of a 4-3 double play as you will ever see.
Wilson, back out for the ninth, did something no other Brewer could do tonight: he got Josh Bell out. A Clemens groundout and a Keaschall fly out capped a fantastic outing for Wilson, who came into a game teetering out of control and retired nine of ten batters he faced, allowing only a single.
Of course, it didn’t mean anything if the Brewers couldn’t muster a couple of runs. After letting golden opportunities go by in the seventh and eighth, they had no such opportunity in the ninth: Twins closer Yoendrys Gómez shut the door with a 1-2-3 inning.
This was a wild game in the early innings, but the bullpens settled things down late, and truthfully, the Brewers were lucky to be in the game at all given how much they’d been gifted by the Twins defense. There were a couple of bright spots offensively for Milwaukee—Turang, Lara, and Hamilton had two hits apiece, with Turang and Hamilton doubling and Chourio supplying the Brewers’ only home run. Drohan suffered through his worst start of the season and Senzatela faltered in his third outing as a Brewer, but Wilson gave the Brewers three good innings.
The Twins send their best healthy starter, Taj Bradley, to the mound tomorrow to face off with the Brewers’ Robert Gasser for a 6:10 p.m. game.
