On a night where your job appears to be on the line, that was not the performance Brewers right-hander Brandon Sproat was needing to have.
Sproat struggled to finish innings once again, getting the first two outs in the 1st, before allowing a single and a walk. Then he put together his first 1-2-3 inning since June 30th, and then the rails promptly fell off.
Sproat got the first two batters out in the 3rd, then allowed back-to-back singles and then a walk to load the bases. Spencer Horwitz promptly
doubled to clear the bases and bring home three runs. That was bad enough. Then the 4th inning happened.
A leadoff single from Endy Rodriguez put a runner on. Then as Sproat faced Jacob Gonzalez, he threw a wild pitch, and then threw another wild pitch. Back-to-back wild pitches was enough and before Sproat could get a new baseball, Pat Murphy was out of the dugout and walking towards the mound to pull his starter from the game.
Mid-at-bat, Sproat gets pulled. You don’t see that kind of frustration very often.
“Yeah, it’s frustrating. The kid is great. He’s got so much potential, he really does. But, again, two out walks, thinkgs like that, the big misses, wild pitches, that stuff you got to keep under control.” Pat Murphy said.
Garrett Stallings came in and settled things down, going three scoreless to keep the Brewers in it, but the offense wasn’t able to provide enough.
Bubba Chandler gave up some hard contact to the Brewers, but stuff was not falling through until the 5th inning when David Hamilton and Joey Ortiz supplied singles to get the Brewers on the board. In the 6th, Jackson Chourio led off with a walk and came around to score after singles from Jake Bauers and Andrew Vaughn. On Vaughn’s single, Bauers was heading for third and would’ve been dead to rights with a good throw, but the throw bounced away and Bauers popped up immediately to come around to score to make it a one run ballgame and chase Chandler from the game.
The Brewers would threaten again in the 7th with runners on first and second and one out for Christian Yelich and William Contreras. You would think that would put the Brewers in an advantageous spot. However, Yelich and Contreras both struck out to end inning and the Brewers did not get another runner in scoring position the rest of the way against the Pirates bullpen.
There were opportunities to be had that the Brewers could not convert. A bunt by the Pirates in the 4th inning led to confusion on the Brewers defense with Contreras calling for a throw to first rather than covering for a potential play at the plate that led to everyone being safe.
It’s a tough night for the Crew and an especially tough night for Brandon Sproat. He may soon find himself on the outside looking in of not only the rotation, but potentially the big league roster altogether.
They are back at it tomorrow night with Logan Henderson on the mound against Jared Jones.
