Three times in this baseball game, the Brewers—a team that hasn’t homered in almost a week—nearly hit a baseball out of the park to right field. But none of those balls made it over the wall, and while Milwaukee sparred with the Pirates and answered their runs throughout the first nine innings, they lacked the big hit to give them a lead. Then some bad bounces (and questionable management of relievers) went against them in the tenth, and the team’s slide hit four games.
The late dramatics came after a compelling showdown between the teams’ two starters, Jacob Misiorowski and Mitch Keller. Misiorowski had the goods early. His first pitch of the night clocked in at 102.6 mph, and he struck out the first two batters on a total of seven pitches. After Bryan Reynolds turned an 0-2 count into a walk, Miz struck out Ryan O’Hearn on three more fastballs, and he had struck out the side.
Keller’s first inning looked quite a bit different, but the results were similar. Brice Turang was frozen by a 2-2 curveball, William Contreras hit a lazy fly ball to right, and Jake Bauers struck out, too.
Nick Gonzales led off the second with the first hit of the game, a base hit to center on a 1-2 fastball that got too much of the zone. But three pitches later, Spencer Horwitz hit a grounder into the shift that ended up as a 5-4-3 double play. A strikeout of Jake Mangum ended the inning.
Tyler Black led off the bottom of the second and struck out looking on an 0-2 curveball that was overturned on a challenge by Pittsburgh catcher Henry Davis. Garrett Mitchell battled, fouled off a couple of high fastballs (which have given him trouble this year), and then smoked a line drive that almost beheaded Keller, but Konnor Griffin had him positioned perfectly and caught Mitchell’s 108 mph liner on the fly. Sal Frelick became the Brewers’ first baserunner of the night when he drew a two-out walk, but Greg Jones struck out on three pitches to end the inning.
Griffin started the third with a base hit to right, but Davis flew out to right and Misiorowski struck out Oneil Cruz and Brandon Lowe for the second time each, and for the second straight inning, a leadoff Pirate baserunner did not advance past first base.
David Hamilton tried to drop one of his patented bunts-for-hits down to start the bottom of the inning, but Gonzales was ready for it and threw him out by a half-step. Joey Ortiz drew a one-out walk (on a 3-2 pitch that might’ve been successfully challenged had the Pirates not lost one in the previous inning), and Turang hit a ball hard to center field but Cruz made a nice catch running back on the warning track on Turang’s 106 mph fly ball. Contreras struck out looking on a front-door sweeper, and Milwaukee still didn’t have a hit after three innings.
Miz’s first pitch of the fourth inning was a curveball that got away and hit Reynolds on the thigh. O’Hearn followed with a single to center, and the Pirates had two on and nobody out in the fourth. Gonzales hit a ball to Turang at second and he tagged O’Hearn for the first out but it wasn’t hit quite hard enough to turn two. Horwitz was the batter with runners on the corners and one out, and Miz got ahead 1-2 but Horwitz went up and got to a 100 mph fastball that was even just a little bot up out of the zone and hit an RBI single to center. Another fielder’s choice that was nearly a double play gave Misiorowski the second out, but Griffin came through with another RBI single and the Pirates had a 2-0 lead. Davis flew out to end the inning, but a struggling Brewer offense now had to come to Misiorowski’s aid.
A couple of bloopers gave the Brewers life in the bottom of the fourth. Milwaukee’s first hit of the game came when Bauers flipped one into no-man’s land in left center. But Magnum misplayed it, and Bauers ended up at second. Black was next, and he got jammed on the first pitch and hit one weakly down the left-field line that landed just out of the reach of a diving Magnum. Bauers, who had to wait to see if it would be caught, only made it to third, but Black was on second with a double and the Brewers were in business with nobody out.
Mitchell again managed to not strike out on a couple of high fastballs again, and a productive groundout middle got Black to third and scored Bauers for the Brewers’ first run since the seventh inning on Thursday. A sacrifice fly from Frelick tied the game, and Milwaukee’s offense had mustered a response to Pittsburgh’s two runs in the top of the inning. Jones scalded a ball at 109 mph with two outs but hit it right at Lowe, who was able to knock it down and throw him out to end the inning. Through four innings, the Brewers had three balls hit at 106 or higher that all went for outs, while their two hits came off the bat at 74 and 71 mph, respectively. Baseball.
Misiorowski responded nicely with a clean fifth inning in which he needed only ten pitches to get two groundouts and a strikeout to retire the top of Pittsburgh’s order. Turang picked up a two-out single in the bottom of the inning to break an 0-for-15 streak, but Contreras grounded out weakly on the first pitch and the score remained knotted at two as we headed to the sixth.
For the second time in three innings, Misiorowski hit the first Pirate batter of the inning, O’Hearn, with a pitch (though this one needed a replay review to confirm that), and just like in the fourth, the next batter, Gonzales, singled to follow that up. To make matters worse, a wild pitch with Horwitz at the plate moved both batters into scoring position with nobody out. Horwitz hit a fly ball to left that was deep enough to score O’Hearn, and an ill-advised throw to the plate by Jones also allowed Gonzales to move up to third with just one out. Misiorowski got a needed strikeout of Mangum, and another one of Griffin ended the inning, but Pittsburgh had retaken the lead.
Once again the Brewers were searching for an answer, and once again Bauers led off the inning with a hit, this time a single in between the shortstop and second baseman, and once again, Black followed with a blooper that landed in the outfield, this time for a single. Milwaukee had runners on first and second this time with nobody out, and that was it for Keller, who was pulled after five-plus innings and 93 pitches in favor of the righty Isaac Mattson.
Mitchell went after Mattson’s first pitch and hit a ground ball to second, which was not hit hard enough to turn a double play, so Milwaukee had runners on the corners with one out for Frelick. For the second straight at-bat, Frelick came through with a sac fly to right that tied the game. Jones, who continued to have some rough luck, hit a solid line drive to center but Cruz caught it and the inning ended. For the second time, though, the Brewers answered the Pirates, and the game was again tied as it headed to the seventh.
Misiorowski was taken out of the game after six pretty good innings; the two HBPs didn’t help him and he gave up a few poorly timed somewhat tough-luck hits, but he only walked one, he struck out nine, and he completed six innings for just the second time on the season. Aaron Ashby was the chosen arm out of the bullpen, and he quickly got the first two outs before Lowe singled to center. No trouble, though, as Ashby struck out Reynolds looking to end the inning.
Luis Rengifo came off the bench to hit for Hamilton to counter lefty Mason Montgomery in the bottom of the seventh. He got a couple of good fastballs to hit but could merely foul them off, then he struck out on a 2-2 breaking pitch. Ortiz grounded out, but Turang drew a two-out walk to give Contreras an opportunity versus the lefty. Contreras got into a hitter’s count and drove one deep to right… but it held up just in front of the wall for Reynolds, and Montgomery escaped the inning.
Ashby kept going in the eighth and struck out O’Hearn looking to start the inning, with an assist from Contreras and the ABS challenge system. Gonzales struck out, too, and Ortiz made a nice pick on a hard one-hopper from Horwitz to end the inning.
What amounted to one pitch after Contreras flew out to the wall in right, Bauers did the same to lead off the bottom of the eighth, on the first pitch against the new Pittsburgh pitcher Dennis Santana. Black popped out, but with two outs Mitchell nearly gave the Brewers a late lead. He hit a fly ball that hit just below the yellow line on the top of the wall in right-center, but had to settle for a double. Frelick had an opportunity to put the Brewers ahead with his third RBI of the night, but he was walked on three pitches (intentionally after the third), and it came down to Jones. Santana spammed sliders until Jones struck out on the seventh pitch, and sixth slider, of the at-bat.
Anxious to end a three-game slide, the Brewers went to Abner Uribe in the top of the ninth. Uribe’s first pitch, to Mangum, was grounded to second for an easy first out. Griffin struck out looking (and burned Pittsburgh’s second challenge in doing so), and Davis flew out to Frelick in right. Pittsburgh sent lefty Gregory Soto to the mound to try to get the game to extra innings. Rengifo flew out to left, Ortiz popped out, and Turang struck out looking. Soto succeeded.
Even though Uribe had only thrown eight pitches in the ninth, it was the struggling Ángel Zerpa to face the lefty-heavy top of the Pirates’ order in the tenth. Cruz did Zerpa a favor by swinging and missing at a 2-0 pitch that was quite a ways inside, and Zerpa came back to strike Cruz out after that. Pittsburgh countered the Zerpa move by pinch-hitting Marcell Ozuna for Lowe, and Ozuna drew a walk (and was pinch-run for by Nick Yorke). Not the end of the world, as it set up a double play with one out, and Zerpa did get a ground ball, but Reynolds hit it where there weren’t any fielders, and Pittsburgh took a 4-3 lead. A chopper back to the mound bounced too high to get a double play—or even a lead runner—but Zerpa did get the second out. Pat Murphy opted for Grant Anderson to face Gonzales, and it did not work; Gonzales hit a 1-1 single that plated both runners and made it 6-3. A fly ball to right ended the inning, but the Brewers, who were just a couple of luckier bounces or a couple of better pitches from getting it to the bottom of the tenth tied, were facing a daunting task.
The Pirate pitcher was Yohan Ramírez (remember him?). The Brewers went quietly, as Contreras grounded out and Bauers and Black struck out.
It’s been a rough week for the Brewers. Go get ‘em tomorrow, I guess. Black did have two hits including a double, which was nice, though both of those hits were softly hit. Mitchell made good contact a couple of times tonight, but his evening will be remembered for just missing a go-ahead homer. Bauers had a couple of hits. Misiorowski was mostly pretty good, but still couldn’t escape that one big inning that tends to plague him. Ashby and Uribe pitched well out of the bullpen.
Milwaukee will look to salvage a game tomorrow at 1:10 p.m., when Carmen Mlodzinski faces Kyle Harrison.
