For the fifth time in the last month, the Milwaukee Brewers failed to win the last game of the series. With the playoffs looming and a deep run expected by the fanbase and franchise alike, it doesn’t bode well for anyone’s confidence.
To pour more salt into an already festering wound, the Brewers were looking to Kyle Harrison to provide length and give an exhausted bullpen a break. Furthermore, coming off one of the worst starts of his career, Harrison was due. Unfortunately for him and the Brewers,
the Reds were eyeing their third straight series win, which they did.
Harrison was unable to even settle into the game before Dane Myers opened the bottom of the first inning with a lead-off double. Shortly after an Elly De La Cruz walk, Tyler Stephenson drove in the first run of the game to give the Reds a 1-0 lead.
After another base-running mistake made by the Brewers in the top of the second inning that led to a 1-2-3 output, the Reds were back in business. De La Cruz and Sal Stewart went back-to-back with sacrifice outs to extend their lead over Milwaukee to 3-0.
Harrison’s outing continued to worsen in the bottom of the third as he allowed his third walk of the game to lead off the inning. After a couple of punchouts and looking like he was starting to find a rhythm, Juan Brito doubled to center field to drive in the Reds’ fourth run of the game.
With the game in the early stages of being run away with by the Reds, the Brewers offense needed to stay hot; Cue the Jake Bauers home run. Bauers hit a two-run blast to cut the Reds’ lead in half, driving in Jackson Chourio to make the game 4-2. Later in the inning, Cooper Pratt played small ball and dropped a sacrifice bunt to bring home Garrett Mitchell, who reached base on a triple, to pull the Crew within 4-3.
Pat Murphy, trying to instill any sort of confidence in Harrison and his fastball again, sent him back out to the mound for the bottom of the fourth inning. The Reds quickly erased the progress the Brewers had made on offense as De La Cruz hit his 23rd home run of the season to push their lead back to three runs. It took another base hit and his fourth walk of the inning to force Murphy to remove Harrison from the game.
Harrison threw 92 pitches in just 3.2 innings, with 41 of the pitches going for a ball. His command issues led to four walks in the afternoon, matching his season high in that category. Overall, he has given up 19 hits in his last two outings, with six home runs allowed. Harrison has been a key piece to the Brewers’ success this season, and with the playoffs a few weeks away, they will desperately need him to get back on track…quickly.
The Brewers offense continued to keep them in the game, racking up back-to-back walks before Mitchell drove in a run to make it 6-4. Turang crushed his 31st double of the season to bring around the tying run to complete the Brewers’ comeback. Unfortunately for the Brewers and their bullpen, that was the closest they would get to trying to beat the Reds.
De La Cruz continued to be a thorn in the Brewers’ side this series as he smacked his 25th double of the season, and his second of the game in the bottom of the fifth inning. With that hit, came two runs that put the Reds up 8-6. Overall in the series, De La Cruz collected seven hits, five RBIs, two home runs, and two walks, no doubt taking the player of the series award, if there was one.
The Reds were finally held quiet throughout the bottom of the sixth, seventh, and eighth innings, after Stephenson’s RBI. Brewers did put together a last-ditch attempt over the final two innings, but ultimately couldn’t come up with the big hit. Pratt and Turang drew back-to-back walks to lead off the top of the eighth inning. Bo Naylor collected his first hit as a Brewer with a base hit to left field to drive in a run to make it 9-7.
Then, in the bottom of the eighth, it was the final nail in what was another frustrating bullpen disaster for the Brewers. The Reds stepped up to the plate and drove in three runs to put the game out of reach. The Brewers were only able to scratch across one run in the top of the ninth, leaving the tying run in the on-deck circle.
This is the first series the Brewers have dropped to the Reds since the final series of the 2025 season, when they dropped two of three. The Brewers will be headed back home after a week on the road to take on the same opponents they did the last week. They’ll start against the Cubs in a three-game series tomorrow night, with first pitch at 2:10 p.m.
