Box Score
Struggling offense? What struggling offense?
The Brewers poured it on the Mariners tonight with 22 hits and 22 runs in a game that became a laugher late. But even discounting the nine runs that Milwaukee scored off of a position player, the offense showed real, positive signs against Mariners starter Bryce Miller and a series of ineffective relievers. On the other side of the ball, Kyle Harrison kept the Mariners off the board for five innings and the bullpen kept it going. What resulted was a historic night: the Brewers matched the largest margin of victory in a shutout in the last 126 years.
Advertisement
Brendan Donovan, the first batter against Harrison tonight, smacked a ball to the base of the wall in the right-field gap for a leadoff double. But Harrison locked in, and even with a wild pitch that advanced Donovan to third, Harrison got managed a scoreless inning with a strikeout, a ground ball to second with a drawn-in infield, and another strikeout. (William Contreras, unfortunately, burned a challenge on a 2-0 pitch with two outs that was almost three inches off the plate, putting Milwaukee behind the eight ball early in that respect.)
The Brewers got some good swings on Miller in the bottom of the first. Brice Turang, playing for the first time since last Wednesday, hit a solid line drive to left but it was caught by Randy Arozarena. Jackson Chourio nearly went yard; he hit one 102 mph and 402 feet to center, but Julio Rodríguez caught it on a leap at the wall. It wasn’t quite a home run robbery, but it kind of looked like it on TV. Jake Bauers was next, and he ripped a double into the right-field corner, just barely beating out Victor Robles’ throw at second. Three pitches later, William Contreras blooped a soft line drive just over shortstop. Bauers looked like dead meat at the plate—Arozarena’s throw beat him by a mile—but when Raleigh put a tag on the sliding Bauers, the ball was knocked loose. Bauers hadn’t touched the plate and didn’t immediately catch that Raleigh didn’t have the ball, but he realized in time to just beat the scrambling Mariner catcher back to home plate. Christian Yelich struck out to end the inning but the Brewers had an early lead.
Harrison got a 1-2-3 inning in the top of the second. The Brewers continued to hit it hard in the second; Luis Lara flew out to the warning track for the first out, and Garrett Mitchell and Joey Ortiz followed with back-to-back one-out singles that were both hit over 100 mph. Miller did manage to work his way out of it after a fielder’s choice from David Hamilton and a ball that just jammed Turang enough for him to fly out to deep right, but Miller was up over 40 pitches through two innings and still trailing 1-0.
Advertisement
Both pitchers started rolling after that, and after each had perfect innings in the third and fourth, Harrison had retired seven straight and Miller eight. Harrison got up to nine straight before walking Robles with two outs in the fifth, and an infield single from the number-nine hitter, Brock Rodden, followed. But the two-out rally was ended when, on a double steal attempt, Contreras threw Rodden out at second (with an assist from a Brewers challenge).
Miller also got to nine straight, but Hamilton ended the streak with one out in the bottom of the fifth on an infield single. With Turang batting, Hamilton stole second—barely—and Turang walked to give the Brewers two runners on with one out. On the first pitch to Chourio, both Hamilton and Turang took off and easily stole third and second with no throw made. Two pitches later, Chourio knocked a base hit to center that scored Hamilton, though Turang, who couldn’t tell if the ball was going to be caught, ended up needing to hold at second.
Bauers kept the rally going by drawing a walk, which loaded the bases for Contreras. The Brewer catcher hit a hard line drive to left—it was caught, but Turang was able to score from third to increase the Brewer lead. After that, the Brewers got the big hit that this offense has lacked lately. With two outs, Mariner manager Dan Wilson chose to stick with Miller rather than move to either of the two lefties who were ready in the bullpen. Yelich made him pay; his three-run homer to right center was his ninth of the season and first since July 24. Josh Simpson came in after Yelich’s homer, a batter too late, and retired Lara to end the inning. The Brewers put a five-spot on Miller in the fifth, and the lead was up to 6-0.
Harrison was done after five innings despite just 79 pitches—he’s still recovering, and it was apparently very hot and humid at American Family Field today. Harrison’s velocity was down a little compared to earlier in the season, and he didn’t appear to have his sharpest stuff, but he still carved up the struggling Mariners offense tonight: he finished with five scoreless innings while allowing two hits and two walks and striking out eight. Harrison was replaced by Shane Drohan, who has at least temporarily rejoined the bullpen; Drohan gave up a two-out double to Dominic Canzone, but Rodríguez flew out to left to end the inning.
Advertisement
After a 109.6 mph single in his fourth-inning at-bat, Mitchell did it again—109.6 mph—in the sixth, punching one through the right side. A walk by Ortiz put two runners on with nobody out, and Hamilton followed with a borderline shocking lefty-on-lefty home run, a three-run shot that made it 9-0 Brewers. It was just the second time Hamilton has homered off a lefty as a big leaguer, though he has only 18 career homers, so I guess that’s not all that crazy.
Simpson, who was quickly unraveling, walked Turang on four pitches. A strikeout of Chourio settled things for a moment, but Bauers got a 2-2 hanging sweeper and hit the Brewers’ third homer of the night, a two-run shot that made it 11-0. Simpson was pulled in favor of Nick Davila, who got Contreras and Yelich to end the inning, but the rout was on.
With their first huge lead in some time, the Brewers made some defensive changes in the top of the seventh behind Drohan, with Jonathan Ornelas, Andrew Vaughn, and Brandon Lockridge entering the game for Turang, Bauers, and Chourio, respectively. Vaughn immediately got to make a play, a pretty nice one on a grounder down the right-field line, and Ortiz followed with some fancy glovework for out number two. Drohan issued a couple of two-out walks, but a Rodden lineout ended the inning.
Advertisement
Things continued to go a bit sideways for the Mariners in the seventh. Lara started the inning with a single and Mitchell followed with another. An Ortiz fielder’s choice put runners on the corners with one out, and a Hamilton single made it 12-0. Lockridge hit a grounder back to Davila, but Davila, looking to start a double play, made a bad throw to second. The ball stayed close enough to the infield that a run didn’t score, but the Brewers had the bases loaded with one out for Vaughn. Vaughn hit into what should’ve been a tailor-made double play to end the inning, but Josh Naylor simply dropped the throw to first—there was nothing wrong with it whatsoever—and Vaughn was safe at first, allowing another run to score. Ornelas struck out to end the inning, but it was the third straight inning in which the Brewers scored multiple runs.
Grant Anderson came in to pitch the eighth for Milwaukee, and after a strikeout of Weston Wilson, he got the second out with the aide of some very slick fielding by Ortiz, who slid to his left and made a sharp throw to first just ahead of Arozarena. Canzone, on the first pitch, flew out to left to end a quick, easy inning for Anderson.
Utility infielder Leo Rivas was on the mound in the bottom of the eighth, offering some 40 mph heat. Contreras led off and missed a home run by a foot or two, settling with a double off the top of the center field wall. Yelich roped a single into center, and Lara followed with the first homer of his career. I’m not sure how he’ll feel about doing it off of Leo Rivas and his 36.9 mph lob, but hey, a homer is a homer.
Rivas proved incapable of getting the Brewers out, as the home batters did a little bit of stat padding. Bauers and Ortiz followed Lara’s homer with a couple of singles. Hamilton flew out to center for Rivas’s first out, but Lockridge kept the hit parade going with a single through the left side of the infield. Vaughn was up with the bases loaded, and he singled in about the exact same spot that Lockridge used, which scored the Brewers’ 17th run on their 20th hit. Ornelas got a hit on a fly ball to left, and for the third time in the game, the Brewers had scored five runs in an inning.
Advertisement
Contreras, who led off the inning, drew an RBI walk. If you didn’t think this game could get any weirder, Yelich then hit a fly ball to center, which Rodríguez caught… but he thought it was the third out, so he threw it into the stands, but it was just the second out, so instead of one run scoring on a sac fly, that run scored and the other batters got to advance two bases. Lara hit an RBI single before Mitchell finally, mercifully, flew out to right—with Robles doing a weird little impersonation of Willie Mays’ famous “Catch.” If you had trouble keeping up with the runs scored there, it was nine; Milwaukee led 22-0.
The Brewers also didn’t feel like letting this game end normally, so Gary Sánchez came out to pitch the top of the ninth. Sánchez was sitting in the high 30s but showed an ability to dial it up all the way to the low 70s. His ability change speeds kept the Mariner hitters off balance, and despite a couple of hits, Sánchez put a zero on the board in the ninth.
That was a historically important zero: with their 22-0 win, the Brewers matched the largest margin of victory in a shutout in the “modern era,” since the American League was founded in 1901. The feat was done just two other times: when the Pirates beat the Cubs 22-0 at Wrigley Field on September 16, 1975; and when the Cleveland Indians beat the Yankees 22-0 on August 31, 2004. In the former game, Pittsburgh leadoff hitter Rennie Stennett went 7-for-7, Hall-of-Famers Willie Stargell and Dave Parker combined for five hits and eight RBI (plus a homer from the Cobra), and John Candelaria went seven shutout innings. In the latter game, Omar Vizquel was 6-for-7 with four RBI, Travis Hafner hit a triple, and home runs came from Coco Crisp, Victor Marínez, and Brewers legend Jody Gerut, while Jake Westbrook went seven shutout while picking up his 12th win of the season.
A box score to remember, here. The Brewers had 22 hits; every player on the team, including the three subs, had at least one except for Turang, who was 0-for-2 with two walks. Yelich, Hamilton, Bauers, and Lara all homered, while Bauers and Contreras both hit doubles when the game was still contested. On the pitching side, Harrison was effective in five shutout innings, while Drohan, Anderson, and Sánchez finished things off.
Advertisement
The Mariners will look to flush this one and get back to good baseball tomorrow, while the Brewers will hope that there’s some real building blocks for their struggling offense in this one. Dustin May is back on the mound for Milwaukee tomorrow, while Seattle will counter with Logan Gilbert. It’s a 6:40 start, and we’ll see you then.
Read the full article here