Jacob Misiorowski has been incredible over the last month. The attention that he has been paid is warranted. But the Brewers have another pitcher who has been killing it lately, one who boasts a lower ERA on the season than Misiorowski. And if you won’t remember how good Kyle Harrison has been, the San Francisco Giants, who traded him away last season, certainly will. Though the 18-inning scoreless inning streak Harrison brought into today’s game finally ended, he struck out 12 Giants in just 5 2/3
innings while allowing just one run. A big early hit and a late rally were all the Brewers needed to take the second game of this four-game series.
The Giants tried to muster a two-out rally against Harrison in the first inning. After impressive strikeouts of Casey Schmitt and Rafael Devers, Luis Arraez lined a ball into the right-field corner that turned into a triple after Sal Frelick had a little bit of trouble getting it to the infield. Willy Adames then walked (though the fourth ball should’ve been a strike), but Matt Chapman popped out down the right-field line on the first pitch he saw and Harrison had a scoreless first inning.
Yelich started the night for the Brewers’ offense with a five-pitch walk off of Giants starter Trevor McDonald. With Jackson Chourio batting, Yelich broke for second; a perfect throw from Giants catcher Daniel Susac might’ve gotten Yelich at second with a great throw, but he was called safe on a very close play. San Francisco challenged, and after a long review, it was determined that there wasn’t enough to overturn the call, and the Giants had lost their challenge in the first inning. McDonald, who was ahead of Chourio 0-2 when the review came in, threw four straight balls, none of which were close, after the lengthy break.
That put two on with no outs for Brice Turang. Turang, though, struck out looking (on a changeup high that was not remotely where it was meant to be thrown, but which caught him off guard), and William Contreras grounded out on a ball right in front of the plate that functioned as a sacrifice bunt. It looked like McDonald was going to get out of the inning, but he left a 2-2 sinker right down the middle to one of the hottest hitters in the league, and Jake Bauers launched a three-run homer to straightaway center field.
That 3-0 score would stick around for several innings, though there was plenty of traffic on the bases. Harrison worked around a one-out single in the top of the second. Frelick led off the bottom of the inning, but nothing came of it. Harrison struck out the side in the top of the third. A Chourio infield single was erased by a double play in the bottom of the second. Willy Adames led off the fourth with a single, but Harrison struck out the next three, too, and he was up to 10 strikeouts in just four innings. Garrett Mitchell hit a one-out double in the bottom of the fourth and he advanced to third on an errant throw by Susac on a pickoff attempt, but Frelick struck out with Mitchell on third, and Rengifo popped out to end the inning.
Harrison had another 1-2-3 inning in the top of the fifth, and by this point he’d extended his scoreless inning streak to 23 innings. (Imagine what we’d be saying about Harrison if Jacob Misiorowski wasn’t on the Brewers.) Milwaukee got another single, this one from Yelich, in the bottom of the fifth, and Turang walked with two out, but nothing came of it.
Finally, in the sixth, someone broke through. After Devers struck out (which he did four times in the game) and Arraez grounded out, Adames got Harrison for a solo homer, his ninth of the season. That made it 3-1, and finally put an end to Harrison’s scoreless inning streak. After a Matt Chapman walk, Pat Murphy fetched Aaron Ashby from the bullpen, and he struck out Buddy Kennedy for the third out.
Harrison had another extremely impressive start. He finished with 5 2/3 innings and allowed four hits and one run on two walks and 12 strikeouts, matching a season (and career) high. Technically, his ERA went up today, by fractions of a point (it was 1.57 at the start of the game and a very slightly higher 1.57 at the end of it).
McDonald was replaced by Erik Miller in the bottom of the sixth. The Brewers kept their streak of “get a hit every inning” alive with a one-out Mitchell single, but Frelick bounced into a double play to end the inning. Ashby gave up back-to-back singles to start the top of the seventh, but Jonah Cox popped up a bunt for the first out, Schmitt grounded out, and Devers grounded out.
In the bottom of the seventh, Milwaukee added an important insurance run. David Hamilton started things with a one-out walk, and Yelich kept things going with another walk. Chourio flew out for the second out, but Turang hit a hard grounder up the middle, just past Arraez, for a two-out RBI single to make it 4-1.
A good thing, too, as San Francisco’s offense finally got something going in the eighth. Arraez led off with a double to right, which prompted another pitching change as Abner Uribe came in for Ashby. After an Adames ground out and a Chapman pop out, it looked like Uribe might get out clean. But pinch-hitter Bryce Eldridge smoked a two-out RBI single into right that scored Arraez, and then Susac and another pinch-hitter, Jung Hoo Lee, got back to back weakly hit ground ball singles to score another. Murphy stuck with Uribe, though, and he got another pinch-hitter, Drew Gilbert, to fly out to Mitchell to end the inning with the score 4-3.
In the bottom of the eighth, the Brewers were looking for more insurance (off of new reliever Tristan Beck) to re-establish the more comfortable lead they had heading into the eighth. They started well: Mitchell walked, and Frelick blooped a single down the left field line. After a sac bunt from Rengifo, Hamilton had a golden opportunity to drive in another run, but he struck out. Beck was on the verge of getting out of it, but the Brewers weren’t done. In a 2-2 count with two outs and two men in scoring position, Yelich banged a single through the right side of the infield to score two runs. Two pitches later, Chourio whacked a high fastball and nearly hit it out to center field; instead, Gilbert couldn’t quite come up with it and it bounced off the wall for a double that scored Yelich. The next batter, Turang, shot a single through the middle to score Chourio. Suddenly, the Brewers lead was up to 8-3; all four runs in the eighth were scored with two outs.
Trevor Megill had been preparing to enter a one-run game, but he was in need of some work so he entered with a five-run lead anyway. He had no trouble: Schmitt flew out, Devers struck out, and Arraez flew out.
Harrison was the star today, but for the second straight night the Brewers put a big number on San Francisco’s pitching staff with a balanced attack. Milwaukee had 11 hits (and at least one in each of the eight innings they came to the plate for the second night in a row) and five players with two: Yelich, Chourio, Turang, Mitchell, and Frelick. Bauers had the game’s biggest hit when he hit the three-run homer in the first, and Mitchell and Chourio added doubles for the Brewers’ other extra-base hits.
The Brewers have already guaranteed a split in this four-game series, but they’ll go for a victory tomorrow. Milwaukee has not announced a starter for either of the remaining games in the series, so we’ll see what happens with that, but the Giants will come back with Logan Webb, their nominal ace, though he has struggled a bit this season.
