Make that three straight wins for the Crew after their 6-1 victory over the Texas Rangers. Tonight’s win adds another to their MLB-leading 84 wins while also extending their division lead to eight games with less than a month to play.
All around the diamond, there were standout players tonight for the Brewers, and while the likes of William Contreras, Jake Bauers, and Jackson Chourio stay hot, there’s one bat that has awakened: Christian Yelich. Yelich finishes the night with three hits and an RBI
with a double. After tonight’s showing, he’s now batting .391 with a .462 OBP over his last seven games.
Sticking with the train of hot offense, Contreras came through with two men on in the bottom of the first inning to give the Brewers an early 1-0 lead. In the very next at-bat, Yelich hit his 21st double of the season, driving in Bauers to extend their lead to 2-0.
Then, the Rangers were introduced to one of the best upcoming pitchers in all of baseball in Logan Henderson, as he picked up his first of seven strikeouts. In fact, going forward, the Rangers were only able to pick up one hit, and that came on a solo home run from former Brewer Danny Jansen in the bottom of the third inning. Henderson went the rest of the way, only facing one of the minimum, finishing the night with only 91 pitches thrown.
With the number of records that this edition of the Brewers has racked up to this point in the season, Henderson continued to pile on his accolades tonight as well. Following tonight’s start, he now has the second-lowest ERA in his first 19 career starts with a 2.30 ERA. The only man above him is Bill Parsons with a 2.27 ERA.
The Brewers’ offense went silent after the first inning until Yelich kicked things off with a weak base hit. After a two-out walk from Sal Frelick, David Hamilton went the other way with it to drive in Garrett Mitchell to extend the Brewers’ lead to 3-1.
After the final 1-2-3 inning from Henderson in the top of the seventh, Contreras picked up his second RBI of the game with a base hit to center field to make it 4-1. Then, for no particular reason, the Brewers decided to play a little small ball in the bottom of the eighth inning.
Frelick and Hamilton both reached base via the drag bunt, but it was Brice Turang who bunted one foul on the third pitch of the at-bat to strike out. Chourio then poked a ball through the left side of the infield to make it 5-1, then, for good measure, Contreras added one final run for his third RBI of the night to cap it at 6-1.
After Henderson provided another stellar outing, Aaron Ashby and DL Hall shut down the Rangers in the final two innings. Hall capped off the series opener win by striking out the side.
The Brewers will go for the series win tomorrow night as they turn to Shane Drohan. You can find that game tomorrow at 7:15 p.m. on FOX.
