The Milwaukee Brewers have hit the fewest amount of homers in the major leagues this season, coming into the night with just 35 long balls. It’s been a tough year for Bernie Brewer, not being able to go down his slide as often as he’d like. But on Tuesday night, he was able to make use of his slide a couple times in the Crew’s 6-0 win over the Cardinals.
Jake Bauers got the scoring started for the Brewers with a solo shot in the 4th inning on an 0-1 cutter that leaked too far out over the plate. It
was Bauers’ 8th home run of the season, which leads the team. He’s now surpassed his home run total from last year.
Then the Brewers really busted the game open in the 5th inning. It started with a leadoff double from Christian Yelich, which was followed by walks from Jackson Chourio and Brice Turang. That loaded the bases for William Contreras, who ripped a double to the opposite field on the first pitch he saw, bringing home two runs. That was all for Cardinals starter Michael McGreevy as Oli Marmol went to his bullpen.
For some reason, with both a lefty and a righty warming, and four of the next five batters being true lefties, Marmol opted for the right-hander Ryan Fernandez. Fernandez hung a slider to Garrett Mitchell, who sent the ball 421 feet to dead center to give the Brewers a 6-0 lead and sent Bernie Brewer down the slide again. It was the first time the Brewers have had multiple homers in a home game since April 30th against the Diamondbacks.
Meanwhile, on the mound, Kyle Harrison was twirling a gem once again. He carved through the Cardinals lineup with ease, allowing just two base runners to reach scoring position all night and not a single runner to reach 3rd base. Harrison had just two strikeouts on the night, well below where he was in his last start when he had 11 punchouts.
Harrison extended his scoreless innings streak to 18 IP, covering his last three starts. In those 18 IP, Harrison has allowed just 11 total hits, only one walk, and has 20 strikeouts.
After 92 pitches from Harrison, Pat Murphy went to his bullpen. Grant Anderson posted a 1-2-3 seventh with the help of a 4-6-3 double play. Then Abner Uribe had a pair of strikeouts in the 8th inning and added a new emote to his end-of-inning celebration, the DX chop. Directed at the Cardinals dugout.
Pat Murphy strongly condemned Uribe’s celebration, saying “That’s unacceptable. I don’t know what got over him. I mean, he’s been an emotional guy, but that kind of thing, that’s just not how we do things. And I was embarrassed by it.”
Uribe offered a different story, saying via translator Daniel de Mondesert, “I understand that that’s unacceptable to go out there and react in a way like that, but at the same time I don’t think it’s professional for their manager to be making signs towards our dugout that he’s going to be hitting guys and there was an event that occurred during the practice today too, and I don’t think that was right and I have my teammates’ back always.”
Uribe declined to comment on what the pre-game incident actually was. He apologized to his Brewers teammates, coaches, and all the higher-ups, but declined to apologize to the Cardinals.
After that, it was on to Trevor Megill back in a 9th inning role, even though this was not a save situation. Megill slammed the door, kept the shutout intact, and gave the Brewers the series win.
While the rivalry between the Brewers and Cubs has been the hottest the last couple of years, the rivalry with the Cardinals sure seems to be alive and well. The Brewers have a chance for a sweep on Wednesday.
