The high for the Brewers coming off their 22-0 victory over the Mariners the night before was very quickly brought crashing back down to Earth on Wednesday night.
Seattle attacked Brewers starter Dustin May, who did not have his best stuff, early and often. The first three batters reached base, going single-single, double to quickly put two runs on the board. May rebounded to get Julio Rodriguez and Josh Naylor to make outs and seemed like he was on the path to get out of the inning. But then he gave
up walks to Cole Young and Cal Raleigh to load the bases for Taylor Ward, who ripped a 2 RBI single.
What did not help during that first inning was William Contreras using up both of the Brewers ABS challenges on pitches that were not even close to the zone. The Brewers were behind the eight-ball early. It ended up being a 35-pitch first inning for May.
“He’s trying to keep May from struggling. He’s trying to get him on track so I understand it, that you went out of the box to do that…but he was wrong on both and it didn’t seem like they were that close.” Pat Murphy said. “So sometimes it’s harder than you think. He’s been really good at it and there he wasn’t.”
Contreras is 7-for his last-21 on challenges from behind the plate, by the way.
Things did not get better in the second inning. May allowed the first three batters to reach base again. Then a Rodriguez sac fly and Naylor single pushed across more runs and the Mariners were up 7-0 before the Brewers came up to bat a second time.
That would be all for May, who gave up seven hits and generated just two whiffs on 66 pitches in two innings.
The Brewers were able to start chipping away in the bottom half of the second when Joey Ortiz lifted a two-run shot over the left field fence for his seventh of the year.
They continued to have traffic on the bases in every inning, but were unable to scratch anything across until the 6th, when back-to-back walks from Contreras and Yelich chased starter Logan Gilbert from the game. Andrew Vaughn punched a single and the bases were loaded with nobody out for the bottom of the order. Luis Lara struck out, but Joey Ortiz was able to get a run home on a sacrifice fly. Cooper Pratt, who returned from the IL today, struck out to end the inning.
All the while the Brewers bullpen was shutting down the Mariners offense that was rolling through the first two innings. Grant Anderson, DL Hall, Bryse Wilson, and Antonio Senzatela combined to shutout the Mariners over the final seven innings of the ballgame. That gave the Brewers a chance to fight back.
The Brewers were able to plate a few more runs in the 8th against Seranthony Dominguez. Vaughn walked, Lara singled, and then Joey Ortiz delivered again with his fourth RBI of the night with a single to bring home Vaughn. With runners at the corners and nobody out, Cooper Pratt bounced into a 4-6-3 double play, which brought home another run to make it a 7-5 ballgame, but killed the momentum in the process.
“Yeah, (Pratt) didn’t have good at-bats. We’ve seen him have good at-bats in big situations, but he’s a young player, just like Lara in the bases loaded situation. It’s really unfortunate.” Pat Murphy said. “Those kids are 21, sometimes in this league, when you’re 21, you make those kinds of mistakes.”
In the 9th, Milwaukee went down in order against Mariners closer Andres Munoz.
In the end, going down seven runs by the second inning was too big of a hole for the Brewers offense to climb out of. They had some big opportunities in the 6th and 8th innings, but were unable to get the big hit and fully capitalize. That sets up the rubber match for Thursday afternoon with Robert Gasser on the mound for the Crew.
