A battle of aces between the Milwaukee Brewers’ Freddy Peralta and San Francisco Giants’ Logan Webb lived up to the pitchers’ duel hype, at least through the first five innings. But a minor meltdown and some defensive miscues gave the Giants a four-run lead in the sixth inning, one that felt much larger given how quiet the Brewer bats had been in the game’s first five-and-a-half innings. The Brewers made things interesting with a ninth-inning rally, but it wasn’t enough to overcome their lack of offense through the first eight innings.
Both pitchers mostly cruised through the first five innings, but the Brewers put some early pressure on Webb. Brice Turang led off with a single, and after a Jackson Chourio strikeout, Christian Yelich walked, but Webb retired William Contreras and Sal Frelick to get out of the inning. Milwaukee threatened again in the second: Rhys Hoskins walked, and with two outs, Caleb Durbin and Turang hit back-to-back singles (the second of which was of the infield variety) to load the bases. But Chourio, who is in the midst of a deep slump, struck out with the bases loaded to end the inning. After that, Webb locked things down — he didn’t allow another baserunner until there was one out in the sixth.
Peralta also had good stuff and mostly cruised through five. He didn’t face a threat of any substance in the first three innings and worked out of it when the Giants got two runners on in the fourth.
Things finally caught up to both pitchers in the sixth, though one was able to work through it and one wasn’t. Contreras knocked a one-out single, and Frelick followed with a ground ball through the right side. But Contreras is not the fleetest of foot, and Mike Yastrzemski gunned him down at third for the second out. To add injury to insult, Contreras got up grabbing at his lower back; he stayed in the game and seemed fine, but we’ll keep an eye on it. After the out on the basepaths, Hoskins grounded out, and the Brewers were unable to break through.
The Giants had no trouble with that in the bottom of the sixth, a borderline disastrous inning that combined bad luck and bad play for a perfect stew of dumb baseball. And the guy who got it started was none other than our formerly beloved shortstop, Willy Adames, who knocked a single to center. The next batter, Jung Hoo Lee, jumped on a first-pitch changeup and also singled. Peralta was now nearing 90 pitches, but he got ahead of Matt Chapman 0-2, and you could see a path out of the inning. But Peralta then threw four straight balls, the last three of which were high fastballs that weren’t all that close, and after that walk loaded the bases with nobody out, Peralta was pulled.
Pat Murphy turned to Nick Mears, who was facing a crappy situation. But this is where the aforementioned bad luck and bad play comes in.
Mears got ahead of Wilmer Flores, but Flores somehow forced a 1-2 slider that was out of the zone—a perfect pitch, really—into center field for a two-RBI single to break the scoreless tie. Mears then struck out Heliot Ramos and got LaMonte Wade Jr. to hit a sharp grounder straight at Turang, and Mears should have been out of it with a double play…but Turang, the reigning Platinum Glove winner, booted it, no outs were made, and another run scored. Mears struck out Patrick Bailey, and then got another ground ball, this one from Christian Koss…this was a harder play than the one that Turang screwed up, but Joey Ortiz got to it and made a throw to first that was a bit wide that Hoskins was unable to hang onto, allowing the fourth run to score.
It was ruled a single, but it was definitely a play that could have been made. Yaz then flew out to center to end the inning; four runs were across, three of them charged to Peralta and the last unearned, but Mears did exactly the job he was asked to do, and the box score will not communicate that.
Milwaukee’s offense was given a chance to answer in the top of the seventh. Webb went back out after the long layoff, and he gave up a leadoff single to Garrett Mitchell and a walk to Ortiz. Webb retired Durbin on a high pop fly, but that was his last hitter; he was replaced by Erik Miller, who got the second out on a fielder’s choice and the third on a harmless groundout by Chourio.
Craig Yoho made his second career appearance in the seventh. It was a little sketchy: with one out, Lee got a swinging-bunt single and Chapman walked, but Lee was caught trying to steal third base, and one pitch later Flores flew out to center, and Yoho had his first major league zero.
The Brewers went down meekly against Tyler Rogers in the eighth. Bryan Hudson was the Brewers’ option in the bottom of the inning, and he struck out Ramos looking twice got Ramos to fly out to left after a couple of questionable balls. Wade made hard contact, but Mitchell made a really nice play on a full sprint into the right field gap. Bailey followed by striking out, and Hudson had a clean inning.
If the Brewers hoped to rally, they’d have to do so against San Francisco’s closer, Ryan Walker. Hoskins got things started off by hitting a single up the middle, after which pinch-runner Vinny Capra replaced him. Mitchell struck out, but Jake Bauers — pinch-hitting for Ortiz — knocked another single up the middle. Walker then hit Durbin with a pitch, and things were officially interesting, as Turang came up with one out as the tying run.
Turang, if you recall, has a pretty solid history with the bases loaded. He didn’t quite hit another grand slam, but he hit a fly ball deep down the left field line that bounced on the warning track and went out for a ground-rule double, scoring two runs in the process. That chased Walker, and there was still only one out with the tying run now at second.
The batter at the plate was Chourio. A week ago, this would have filled most fans with confidence, but Chourio has been scuffling in a major way. Chourio would face Camilo Doval, the Giants’ deposed former closer who weirdly became bad last season. Chourio somewhat predictably chased a first-pitch slider but then got one that he probably could have hit on 0-1, but fouled it off. He got another one at the bottom of the zone on 0-2 but missed it, and he struck out for the third time in the game on three straight sliders. Yelich saw two pitches and hit a ground ball to second base, and the game ended anticlimactically.
In the game thread, user wiguy94 noted an alarming statistic about Chourio, who is taking up all the seats on the struggle bus at the moment: through his first four plate appearances, he saw eight pitches out of the zone today, and swung at all eight of them; he added another in his last AB. It’s been a week since I wrote about his walk aversion this season, and things have gotten more alarming. I’m now of the opinion that the team’s coaches are doing him a disservice if they are not mandating that he takes the first pitch of every plate appearance (which they obviously are not). He appears to have no idea what anyone is throwing at the moment, yet he’s as aggressive as any batter in the majors. It’s a bad combination.
Beyond that, the Brewers pitched okay today, but their defense failed them at a crucial moment, and their bats had nothing threatening until it was too late. Turang continued to be a bright spot, though: after going 4-for-4 on Tuesday, he was 3-for-5 today and had the team’s only extra-base hit (and both of their RBIs).
The Brewers will look to draw a series split tomorrow afternoon, when they’ll send Tobias Myers to the hill for his first start of the season — Myers is listed as the starter on the team website, but they’ll still need to make a roster move, as he hasn’t been activated yet. He’ll take on the Giants’ Landen Roupp at 2:45 p.m. CT.
