Box Score
In a game full of ups and downs, the Brewers had the last laugh. Dustin May didn’t make it through the third inning and Milwaukee blew two different leads, but they still managed to pull out a win in tonight’s series opener against the Baltimore Orioles.
Milwaukee took an early lead thanks to a two-out rally in the second sparked by the bottom of the order. Luis Lara beat out a soft grounder down the third-base line, and Cooper Pratt worked a walk to put two on for Jackson Chourio.
Chourio’s been red-hot all month, he’d already singled, and Orioles starter Cade Povich wasn’t going to give him anything to hit. Down 3-0 in the count, Povich finally grooved a changeup down the middle. Bad idea. Chourio sent it 419 feet into the center-field bleachers to give the Brewers an early 3-0 lead.
Side note: Per the radio broadcast, that was apparently the first time Chourio has ever swung on a 3-0 pitch. Maybe conventional wisdom doesn’t apply when you’re as hot as Chourio has been.
While the three-run bomb gave the Brewers a substantial lead, Brewers starter Dustin May couldn’t hold it for more than an inning. May’s stuff had looked pretty good through the first two frames, as he gave up a single in each inning but kept Baltimore out of scoring position.
The third inning was a different story. May allowed a single to Leody Tavares, then walked Dylan Beavers to bring up Pete Alonso with two on and nobody out. Not an ideal situation in which to face a guy with 37 home runs. May quickly fell behind 3-0, battled back to work the count full, then threw a cutter that Alonso punished, sending it over the fence in right field to tie the game at 3.
May bounced back by striking out Gunnar Henderson but fell apart after that, giving up a hard-hit double to Coby Mayo and a single to Samuel Basallo. He quickly got two strikes on Christian Encarnacion-Strand but ran an 0-2 sinker in far enough to hit him.
At this point, Pat Murphy had seen enough, and for the second straight game, the Brewers’ starter would fail to make it through three innings. Shane Drohan came in and managed to stop the inning from snowballing further, striking out Colton Cowser for the second out, then getting Jeremiah Jackson to ground out to retire the side.
Milwaukee had a chance to take the lead right back in the fourth after a two-out single by Cooper Pratt, after which Orioles manager Craig Albernaz yanked Povich in favor of Anthony Nunez. With Chourio up, Pratt immediately stole second, and Chourio smoked a line drive into right field that hung up just long enough for Tavares to run it down.
With both starters out of the game before the end of the fourth, you’d be forgiven for thinking this would turn into a shootout. In reality, neither team would score again for a long stretch. Drohan went one more hitless inning before ceding the ball to Antonio Senzatela, who didn’t exactly shut the Orioles down but managed to keep them off the board.
After Mayo led off the fifth with another double, he advanced to third on a groundout. Senzatela then got Encarnacion-Strand to hit a weak grounder back to him, but Mayo — somewhat inexplicably — was caught three-quarters of the way down the basepath. Mayo almost made it back to third (Senzatela might need to practice rundowns), but Ortiz applied the tag just in time to get the second out of the inning. Despite allowing another hit, this time to Colton Cowser, Senzatela got Jackson to line out for the third out.
DL Hall kept the Orioles scoreless through the sixth and seventh, dominating in the sixth before working around a single, a walk, and a wild pitch in the seventh. Meanwhile, the Brewers offense managed a baserunner in every inning after the fifth but couldn’t score either. They had their best chance in the eighth after two Orioles relievers — Josh Walker and Rico Garcia — walked the bases loaded, but Pratt flew out to right field to end the inning.
After Abner Uribe set down the Orioles in the bottom of the eighth, culminating with a swinging strikeout of Pete Alonso, Brice Turang led off the ninth with a single. The next batter, William Contreras, put the Brewers ahead with one swing of the bat.
After Contreras’ go-ahead double, Albernaz pulled Garcia for old friend Grant Wolfram, who got out of the inning; but not before allowing another RBI, this time a two-out single off the bat of Christian Yelich.
Trevor Megill entered for the bottom of the ninth having not blown a save since June 5, but the Orioles had other ideas. Henderson led off with a single, then Mayo hit yet another double down the left-field line. Basallo followed with a high fly ball into right field that Sal Frelick, who’d pinch-hit for Lara, had to range over to catch. With his torn labrum, he didn’t have a shot at getting Henderson at home. Encarnacion-Strand then hit a sac fly of his own, with Mayo just beating a high throw from Garrett Mitchell.
With the bases now empty, Heston Kjerstad came in to pinch-hit for Rece Hinds, but Megill struck him out to end the inning.
Megill has been dominant for the vast majority of this year, so he hasn’t needed the Brewers offense to pick him up much, but they did tonight. Joey Ortiz started on second, Garrett Mitchell bunted him over, and Sal Frelick grounded a single through the right side to put the Brewers up by a run once again.
That would turn out to be all the run support they’d need, as Chad Patrick slammed the door on the Orioles for his sixth save of the season. With tonight’s win, the Brewers move to 96-58 on the season, and they’ll get another chance to add to their league-leading win total tomorrow. Robert Gasser is slated to go for Milwaukee opposite lefty Trevor Rogers. First pitch is set for 3:05 p.m.
