Box Score
The Milwaukee Brewers came into tonight’s contest needing merely to win to clinch a playoff spot.
They looked motivated.
An all-out assault on Cincinnati’s pitching, whether it was starter Andrew Abbott or any of the relievers who followed him, led to eye-popping offensive numbers from the Brewers. Pair that with an extremely encouraging start in which Dustin May, who is vying for a postseason rotation spot, cruised through six scoreless innings, and the Brewers put on quite a show as they
officially punched their postseason ticket.
They did not need much time to turn this one into a laugher. After a quick top of the first from May, Jackson Chourio picked up right where he left off against the Cubs and whacked a double into left. Brice Turang then bunted for a single, and with runners on the corners, William Contreras hit a sacrifice fly to center that gave the Brewers a 1-0 lead. Andrew Vaughn was up next, and he crushed a 92 mph fastball right down the middle for another double to left, scoring Turang from first.
Abbott worked out of the inning by getting Jake Bauers and Luis Lara, but it didn’t take long before the Brewers put more pressure on him. After a 1-2-3 second for May, Cooper Pratt and Garrett Mitchell started the bottom of the second with back-to-back singles. After Joey Ortiz flew out, we were back to the red-hot Chourio, who cracked one into the right-field gap. It bounced off the warning track and went over the wall, scoring Pratt from second and putting runners on second and third with one out. After a mound visit, Turang, who’d dropped down a bunt for a hit in the first, swung away—and did not miss. A changeup in a bad spot ended up in the Reds’ bullpen, and Milwaukee’s lead was up to six on Turang’s lefty-on-lefty violence.
That wasn’t all in the second, though; with two outs, Vaughn singled and Bauers, in his second at-bat, also got one off the lefty, a two-run shot to center, and it was 8-0 Brewers after two.
Back on the mound in the third, May continued to cruise with another three-up, three-down inning. Abbott was done after two innings, and reliever Julian Garcia was able to put up a zero in the third despite a single from Ortiz. Garcia even managed to get Chourio out!
Sal Stewart picked up his second single in the top of the fourth but that was all against May. In the bottom of the inning, the Brewers kept their foot on the gas. Turang drew a walk to start the inning, and after hard line drives from Contreras and pinch-hitter Christian Yelich (with the lefty Abbott out of the game) went for outs, Bauers singled and some sloppy fielding allowed Turang to score all the way from first.
In the top of the fifth, Luis Lara decided that the Brewers would flex on both sides of the ball. Eugenio Suárez led off the inning with a drive to right that would’ve been a homer, but Lara got up and pulled it back—fooling everyone in the process. Two batters later, May had another 1-2-3 inning, and was just two over the minimum through five.
If things weren’t out of hand by the bottom of the fifth, they certainly were before the inning was over. Mitchell, Ortiz, and Chourio started the inning with consecutive singles, scoring Mitchell on the third. Turang followed with an RBI double (and was replaced by David Hamilton as a pinch-runner, just to get him off of his feet), and Contreras—the last Brewer starter without a hit—lined a two-run single to center. Reds pitcher Luis Mey finally got a couple of outs with strikeouts of Yelich and Bauers, but Lara single and Pratt walked to load the bases with two out. Up stepped Mitchell, who blasted the Brewers’ first grand slam of the year.
Through five innings, the Brewers had a 17-0 lead and 20 hits. That will do.
The other major positive about the game was that Dustin May was having a great night. He had to work through a little trouble in the sixth when with two outs he walked Elly De La Cruz and Pratt was given an error when he had trouble with a hard ground ball from Stewart, but a JJ Bleday groundout ended the inning. That ended up being May’s last inning, as he didn’t need to keep going with the game so lopsided: he allowed just two hits and a walk while striking out six on an efficient 84 pitches in six shutout innings (with a nod to Lara and his home-run robbery).
Brock Burke was Cincinnati’s pitcher in the sixth and he had a 1-2-3 inning—the first of the night for the Reds—despite a 106 mph, 349 foot line drive from Contreras. May’s replacement in the seventh was the newly recalled Garrett Stallings, and his only blemish in the inning was a walk to Suárez.
It was position player time in the bottom of the seventh, and of course Jose Trevino, the Reds’ backup catcher, threw a 1-2-3 inning. In the top of the eighth, Bo Naylor came on at first base—notable, because in 347 career games in the big leagues, he’d never appeared in the field anywhere other than catcher. Stallings was perfect in the top of the eighth, and after Trevino had shut down the Brewers in the seventh, the Brewers got to him in the eighth—singles by Ortiz and Chourio were followed by a three-run homer by Contreras, giving the Brewers a 20-0 advantage.
Stallings completed his third scoreless inning—he’s now got 11 scoreless innings to start his major-league career—to finish off the Reds.
Quite a box score to peruse, but a few highlights:
- Chourio had four hits, his fourth four-hit game since August 27th. Two were doubles. His batting average is up 23 points since August 15th.
- Turang went 3-for-3 with a double and a homer before being lifted for a pinch-runner.
- Vaughn was 2-for-2 with a double and an RBI.
- Bauers had two hits including a two-run homer.
- Contreras was the last Brewer starter to pick up a hit, but he finished 2-for-5 with a homer and six RBI.
- Lara had two hits and robbed a homer.
- Mitchell was 3-for-5 with a grand slam and three runs scored.
- Ortiz also had four hits, all singles. Speaking of batting averages, Ortiz was hitting .188 at the end of May and is now at .263.
Add in the combined shutout for May and Stallings, and the Brewers made quite the statement as they clinched their eighth playoff berth in the last nine years.
The Brewers are still playing for a bye and home field advantage in the playoffs, and they haven’t yet clinched the division, though they can do so in a matter of days—the earliest possible day being Sunday, if they were to sweep the Reds and the Pirates took the next two from the Cubs.
The series continues tomorrow when Brady Singer starts for the Reds. The Brewers haven’t announced any starters moving forward, so stay tuned to see who ends up on the mound.
