Category: Baseball

The Colorado Rockies took the field under the scorching sun at Coors Field this afternoon looking for a series win against the San Francisco Giants to close out their final homestand before the All-Star Break. It wasn’t always pretty, but these scrappy and exciting rebuilding Rockies kept themselves within reach at all times, kept the game interesting, and eventually walked away with a win thanks to a bullpen that bent but didn’t break and the late game heroics of one Kyle Karros.

Gordon gets hit hard

When you look at Tanner Gordon working five innings with seven strikeouts and two walks while giving up six hits, it sounds like a pretty good start. The problem is that four of those six hits were home runs. Gordon allowed five earned runs this afternoon, all of which scored via the long ball.

After the Rockies took a 2-0 lead in the first inning, Gordon gave up a two-run shot to Drew Gilbert in the top of the second. He also gave up two solo home runs off the bat of Rafael Devers, the second of which was demolished with authority all the way into the right field third deck. That second home run was one of two times Gordon was taken deep in his fifth and final inning of work with Casey Schmitt–who has made highlight reels for his defense this series–being responsible for the other.

The bullpen faces traffic but holds the line

Brennan Bernardino took over for Tanner Gordon in the sixth inning and faced immediate traffic by walking Willy Adames on four pitches. A rare error under the glove of Ezequiel Tovar allowed Bryce Eldridge to reach safely and a Drew Gilbert single scored what looked to be the losing run as the Rockies’ offense had gone quiet. However, Bernardino escaped the inning giving up just that one run thanks to a sacrifice bunt for the first out of the inning and an incredibly fortuitous double play by Edouard Julien and Kyle Karros.

Holding the line became the theme for most of the bullpen this afternoon. Jimmy Herget pitched the seventh inning and once again the Rockies faced immediate opposing traffic. Herget plunked a batter on just his second pitch of the game before giving up a single. However, Herget dialed it in to record three straight outs with runners on first and second by inducing two flyouts and a strikeout. Victor Vodnik gave up a walk and a single in the eighth inning, but also tallied two strikeouts and continued the trend of not letting traffic cause issues for the Rockies.

Jordan Romano, in his second outing in a Rockies uniform since being called up yesterday, was called from the bullpen in a true closing situation. After a groundout for the first out, Romano battled Rafael Devers with nine pitches to strike out the Giants’ slugger. With two outs, Jung Hoo Lee (이정후) singled to keep the inning alive, but Romano struck out Willy Adames on a 94.6 MPH four-seam fastball–after throwing four straight sliders–to record the final out and earn his first save in a Rockies uniform.

“He’s been doing this a very long time,” said Warren Schaeffer. “He’s got a ton of big league saves. You could tell out there today he’s calm under pressure. He wants the ball.”

Offense in the beginning, offense at the end

The red-hot Jake McCarthy kicked of the Rockies’ half of the first inning with his sixth triple of the season on the very first actual pitch–Giants starter Tyler Mahle was dinged for a pitch clock violation to start the at-bat–of the game. McCarthy was driven home on an RBI groundout by Hunter Goodman and the first run was on the board. Back-to-back singles by the Rockies’ TJ duo–TJ Rumfield and Troy Johnston–set the table yet again with two outs, and a failed pick-off attempt by Mahle sailed into the outfield and allowed Rumfield to score.

The Rockies scored two more early game runs in the second and third innings of the game. An Edouard Julien single and a Brett Sullivan double brought home a run in the second, while back-to-back singles by Hunter Goodman and TJ Rumfield set up Troy Johnston to bring home another run via a sacrifice fly.

“Sully’s been pretty consistent all year,” manager Warren Schaeffer said in his post-game comments. “I mean, there was a time where he was hitting left-handers really well this year, which is special, but he always gives a good at bat, and when Goody needs a DH day and we’re facing a right-hander, Sully steps right in, we don’t skip a beat.”

Then something curious happened. The Rockies’ offense went quiet. The Rockies had just two singles (Willi Castro and Hunter Goodman) through the next four innings. They failed to draw a single walk all game, and they had not recorded a single hit with runners in scoring position heading into the eighth inning. Down by two runs, it looked like the Rockies were likely to drop the final game of the series.

However, TJ Rumfield kicked off the bottom of the eighth inning by doing what TJ Rumfield does: getting on base. The May and June National League Rookie of the Month winner swatted a double to left field with one out, and his fellow TJ in Troy Johnston joined him on base shortly after by getting hit by a pitch.

Kyle Karros–who enjoyed excellent results at the plate in June with a .357/.444/.586 line–entered the batter’s box and drew a patient 3-1 count before one upping Rafael Devers. Karros crushed a three run home run 471 feet to left-center to put the Rockies ahead and in line for the win.

“I knew it was gone,” said Karros after the game. “I got it off the bat as good as I can get a baseball. I was juiced up. Fired up.”

Karros, not usually one to admire his work, says he took a minute to watch his home run fly.

“I hit it 471 feet,” he said. “That’s a different one. I can gaze at that one.”

Coming Up Next

The Rockies have finished all of their home games for the first half and will board a plane to the City of Angels this evening. Tomorrow they will kick off a three game set against the Los Angeles Dodgers at Chavez Ravine. In a battle of the lefties, Kyle Freeland will face off against Eric Lauer. All three games in the series are scheduled for 8:10 PM MDT.

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The Sox needed length from Erick Fedde today, and he delivered. The Sox needed a lot of big outs from their bullpen, and it delivered. The Sox needed their defense to buckle up and make plays when it counted, and they did. If it felt like they rather deserved to lose last Thursday and Friday’s heartbreakers, today’s 7-6 squeaker of a win over the Cleveland Guardians felt like a game they squarely deserved to have, despite a number of miscues that nearly cost them the series.

It could have barely been possible for this series to be any closer. Three of the four games were decided by a single run, with yesterday’s two-run margin being the exception. It feels likelier by the day that it’ll continue to be a season-long dynamic. The next time the two teams meet, on August 7 in Chicago, it feels more likely than not the two teams won’t be much farther apart in the standings than their current one-game margin.

Though a bizarre start-and-stop series of rain delays seemed to significantly impede Cleveland starter Tanner Bibee’s warmup routine, Fedde’s usage as a bulk reliever today meant that his planned entrance to the game was more or less unaffected by Cleveland’s warning track. Drainage issues before the game led to an additional delay of nearly an hour after the rest of the field seemed to have recovered from the afternoon’s heavy rain.

With first pitch announced as coming at 1:30 p.m. CT, Bibee re-started his pregame throwing routine only to shut it down again for an additional hour. He never found a groove once the game started, lasting just four innings and departing with six earned runs on his line, the third time this year he’s been tagged for at least that many.

It didn’t take long for the Sox to jump on him, with Kyle Teel’s opposite-field blast giving the Pale Hose a 2-0 lead within three batters of the game’s belated start.

Two innings later, Bibee fell victim to Tristan Peters’ burgeoning power surge. The Sox center fielder scooped a low cutter out to the pull side for his fifth longball of the year. Since his first roundtripper on May 17, Peters is slugging better than .550, and his 15 doubles in that span are tops in the AL. He went 2-for-4 on the afternoon.

Bibee couldn’t get his other fastball by Sox lefties, either. Just an inning later, Colson Montgomery broke the game open with his team-best 23rd homer of the season, driving in Andrew Benintendi and giving the Sox a 6-0 lead with a 110 mph laser on an outside fastball. Montgomery joined Peters as Sox hitters with multi-hit efforts today.

Miguel Vargas had the final big day in the Sox lineup, reaching base four times thanks to three walks. He scored two of the team’s seven runs.

The offensive surge didn’t make this any less tense of a game than its predecessors. After those nail-biters to open this series, the Sox bullpen was in bad need of a respite, and they got one — sort of. When Sox opener Chris Murphy failed to make it through the first inning, forcing Fedde into the game earlier than expected, the veteran righthander nonetheless got them through the sixth with a lead somehow intact. A breathtakingly clutch multi-inning outing from Sean Newcomb dragged the White Sox across the finish line without having to entrust a one-run lead to one of their more erratic relievers.

The “somehow intact” comes courtesy of the Sox defense, which had an uncharacteristically hard time this afternoon even accounting for the difficult field conditions. The tone was set early on when left fielder Sam Antonacci slipped on the outfield grass in pursuit of Cleveland leadoff hitter Steven Kwan’s shallow fly ball, allowing a baserunner that would come around to score. A few hitters later, freshly-minted All-Star Miguel Vargas’s failure to wrangle a soft ground ball — on an admittedly tough play — kept Cleveland’s inning alive long enough to plate another run.

Even as the Sox offense continued to pile on runs, the defense gave them right back. Fedde’s solid performance was nearly undone when Colson Montgomery’s double-play-turned-error was instantly punished with a game-tying moonshot from Gabriel Arías:

After eight precarious innings of navigating shoddy defense and a combination of timely and untimely hitting, the only question was who would take the ball in the ninth. Today gave us confirmation of just how far Seranthony Domínguez has fallen down the closer depth chart, as Newcomb was allowed to take the hill again in the ninth inning, with Jordan Hicks waiting in the wings if things got hairy. It seemed little thought was given to putting the game in Newcomb’s hands.

After a frazzling eighth-inning appearance, Newcomb was nails in the ninth inning, aggressively hitting his spots and taking just nine pitches to retire the side with two strikeouts and guarantee the White Sox sole possession of first place entering the first half’s home stretch.

Brutal losses on Thursday and Friday could have been crushing to a young and inexperienced team with no prior history of being in a high-pressure playoff race. Instead, the lack of quit we’ve seen all season showed that it still has life. Wins and losses count the same all year round, but from a psychological standpoint, leaving Cleveland with a split and their position in first place intact should be a massive boost to a continuously-growing belief that this Cinderella first half by the Chisox hasn’t been a simple mirage.

Steve Stone said it best in the top of the ninth inning: Both of these teams are going to be quite happy for tomorrow’s off-day. The Sox have a short flight home tonight to enter the final six games of the first half, and they’ll be back on the field Tuesday against the Red Sox. It’ll be an intriguing battle of rookie lefties at Rate Field, with Noah Schultz set to square off against Payton Tolle at 6:40 p.m. CT. We’ll see you there!

Miami Marlins right-hander Eury Perez was perfect for seven innings on Sunday, June 5.

But his bid for MLB's first perfect game in more than three years was stopped by his own manager.

Perez was lifted after seven flawless innings and eight strikeouts against the Athletics, with Marlins skipper Clayton McCullough removing him after 92 pitches. The seven innings tied a season-high for the electric 23-year-old, who was making just his third start since returning from a thigh injury.

Perez had Tommy John elbow surgery before the start of the 2024 season that kept him out of action for all of that season and half of 2025.

Fans in Sacramento responded to Perez's removal by chanting "shame" and pointing at the Marlins dugout as the eighth inning started.

A's fans continue to yell "SHAME! SHAME!" towards the Marlins dugout ever since Eury Pérez was pulled with a perfect game through 7 IP.

The A's have scored 5 runs and recorded 0 outs since the chants started. pic.twitter.com/tBMbNYWIo6

— FOX Sports: MLB (@MLBONFOX) July 5, 2026

Reliever Lake Bachar gave up the perfect game, no-hitter and shutout in a three-batter span by walking Lawrence Butler, allowing a single to Joshua Kuroda-Grauer and then giving up an RBI double to Carlos Cortes. After a walk to Max Muncy, Bachar allowed a grand slam to Jonah Heim, which prompted celebration and more "shame" chants by A's fans.

Domingo Germán of the New York Yankees threw MLB's most recent perfect game on June 28, 2023. That also came against the Athletics.

The Tampa Bay Rays came into Sunday’s game against the Houston Astros riding a nine-game homer streak. That streak came to an end on a day of a shutout loss, when the lucky breaks did not go the Rays’ way.

Houston wasted no time accepting two unexpected gifts in the bottom of the first. Ben Williamson could not field Jose Altuve’s ground ball, and Hunter Feduccia’s throw sailed into center field on Altuve’s stolen base attempt, allowing the Astros’ second baseman to race all the way to third with only one out.

That usually ends with a run crossing the plate. Instead, Rays’ starter Mason Englert had other ideas.

After striking out Yordan Alvarez, Englert watched Isaac Paredes lift a harmless fly ball to shallow right, then froze Christian Walker with another strikeout to escape the inning unscathed. It was an impressive bit of damage control that could have easily unraveled after two defensive mistakes.

The Rays had survived their own sloppy start. Now they just needed to take advantage of it.

They almost did an inning later.

Chandler Simpson lined a single into center, promptly stole second, and put pressure on Houston’s defense with his legs. Victor Mesa Jr. followed with a walk, putting two aboard with two outs, but the Rays never found the swing to bring them home. Richie Palacios bounced into a force play, quietly ending the promising inning.

This would become a familiar theme.

Englert continued matching Houston pitch for pitch through the middle innings, getting plenty of help from a defense that settled down after its rocky opening.

Taylor Trammell provided one of the afternoon’s defensive highlights with a leaping grab in center to rob Jonathan Aranda in the third, helping preserve the scoreless tie.

Then came the bottom of the fourth.

Good hitters punish mistakes, and Englert left a fastball near the center of the plate for Christian Walker. Walker launched a solo homer into right field to finally break the deadlock, turning what had been a well-pitched chess match into a game where every remaining opportunity carried a little extra weight.

To Englert’s credit, that was about the only real mistake.

The right-hander regrouped immediately, retiring the next three hitters and keeping the deficit at just one. That mattered because Tampa Bay kept giving itself chances to answer.

The fifth inning may have been the most frustrating of them all.

Williamson ripped a leadoff single and swiped second, putting the tying run in scoring position with nobody out. Victor Mesa Jr. struck out, but Palacios moved Williamson to third with a productive ground ball.

Ninety feet away. Two outs. One well-placed ball ties the game.

Instead, Hunter Feduccia lined one directly at Christian Walker at first base, and another rally disappeared before it ever really got started.

If that wasn’t enough, the sixth somehow found another way to sting.

Aranda hit a single, bringing Junior Caminero to the plate. Orioles pitcher Peter Lambert then threw a wild pitch, advancing Aranda to second. Another wild pitch advanced Aranda to third with one out after Steven Okert entered the Houston bullpen. The tying run stood just 90 feet away again.

Caminero popped out to shortstop, and then Ryan Vilade, pinch-hitting for Cedric Mullins, lifted a fly ball to right that settled comfortably into Cam Smith’s glove.

Three innings with runners reaching third base and zero runs to show for it through six. Baseball has a cruel sense of timing, and the Astros wasted little time reminding everyone.

Leading off the bottom of the sixth, Paredes turned on a pitch and drove it into the left-center field seats for his 12th homer of the season. Just like that, a one-run game became a two-run deficit that felt like a mountain to climb.

The Rays still had six outs left, but they never seriously threatened again.

Jonny DeLuca singled as a pinch hitter in the eighth, but Houston got him out on a force play. Josh Hader entered for the ninth and issued a leadoff walk to Junior Caminero, briefly bringing the tying run to the plate. It felt like one last opening.

It wasn’t.

Ryan Vilade struck out, Chandler Simpson lined out, and Williamson followed with another strikeout to end it.

There were positives buried in the loss. Englert battled through 5.2 innings despite surrendering the two solo homers, and the bullpen kept the Astros from adding on. The pitching staff also piled up 12 strikeouts against one of the American League’s more dangerous lineups.

But this game belonged to the opportunities that slipped away.

The Rays will be back at it tomorrow to open their seven-game homestand heading into the All-Star break. Griffin Jax is scheduled to take the mound against the Yankees with first pitch at 6:40 pm ET.

Blue Jays 0 Mariners 4

So…..for the second game in a row, we didn’t score. Today, three hits, one extra base hit (Vlad’s double), with singles from Nathan Lukes and Ernie Clement. And we had two walks.

Surprisingly, only six strikeouts, but a lot of soft contact. We had one hard hit ball, Vlad’s double at 114.7. Luis Urías (101.7) and Ernie Clement (100.4) were the only other Jays with balls hit at 100. Both ground outs.

Trey Yesavage wasn’t as sharp as he usually is, but still had a quality start. Six innings, three hits, three runs, two earned, two walks and seven strikeouts. A pretty good line. The Mariners didn’t seem to be going after his breaking stuff, and they did have two home runs, if that is a bad Trey start, we have an excellent starter there.

Tyler Rogers pitched a quick seventh (just six pitchers). Mason Fluharty had a very long eighth inning, 32 pitches. Allowing three hits, one earned, with two strikeouts.

Other than that, Ernie Clement’s had an throwing error at short. Vlad made a couple of nice defensive plays. Lukes made a nice catch in right.

But, all in all, I should have slept through this one as well.

No Jays of the Day.

Other Award: Yesavage (-0.12 WPA), Lukes (-0.10) and Okamoto (-0.09)

Tomorrow the Jays travel a few hours south, to start a series with the San Francisco Giants (one of those places I’d like to go see a game, but won’t for the next few years). Kevin Gausman (4-7, 4.19) goes against Landen Roupp (5-8, 4.55). Maybe the Jays could, you know, score. It is a late start, 9:45 Eastern

DENVER — It took until the last game of the series at Coors Field this weekend before a lead changed hands, almost unheard of in the mile-high ballpark that practically births chaos.

In the end, it didn’t go in the Giants’ favor.

Kyle Karros jacked a mammoth three-run homer in the eighth inning that flipped a two-run Giants advantage into a 7-6 defeat, sending them to their second series loss in as many tries against the lowly Rockies, one of two National League teams below them in the standings.

Against the two teams on either side of them in the NL West, the Giants went 2-4 and dropped both series on this road trip against Colorado and the Diamondbacks.

“It’s pretty bittersweet,” manager Tony Vitello said. “Because you could flip the script pretty much with just one game. It didn’t start off very well. We had a game in there we didn’t play good baseball at all. … We had some things to celebrate with the All-Star [selections], guys have spoken up and said good words.

“But ultimately, unfortunately that scoreboard dictates a lot in your life when you’re doing this.”

The Giants slugged four home runs, including two from Rafael Devers to claim the team lead with 18, but Karros got the last laugh.

The go-ahead blast landed 471 feet away, at the very top of the left field bleachers, and marked only the second time Colorado scored against the Giants’ bullpen over the final two games of the series.

It came against Dylan Smith, the seventh reliever summoned the past two days by Vitello and the first who wasn’t able to get the job done. Smith had a 1.69 ERA in 12 previous appearances.

He struck out the Rockies’ biggest threat, Hunter Goodman, to begin the eighth and got two strikes on the next batter, T.J. Rumfield. But the rookie went the opposite way to sneak a double down the left field line, and nothing went right from then on.

Smith hit Troy Johnston with his next pitch and fell behind 3-1 to Karros. He attacked him high and inside, and Karros was waiting for it.  

Before Smith, the Giants’ bullpen had limited the Rockies to just one run over seven innings the past two games. But the dam burst, souring the flight back to San Francisco.

“You kind of feel like six [runs] can get it done,” Vitello said.

In addition to Devers’ second multi-homer game of the season, Casey Schmitt slugged his 17th and Drew Gilbert added one among his four hits to match a career high, finishing a triple away from the cycle.

Devers’ second homer reached the third deck, a 463-foot blast that was the second longest of his career.

“That’s probably the furthest ball I’ve ever seen hit,” Schmitt admired.

The power show from Devers and Schmitt made them the first pair of Giants teammates with at least 17 home runs in their first 90 games since Barry Bonds and Jeff Kent in 2000.

“I didn’t know about that,” Schmitt said. “But that’s cool to know that’s a thing. … I’m not really trying to go out there and hit homers. I’m just trying to hit line drives, and if I catch it, I catch it.”

Schmitt wasn’t the only one to get ahold of one, but it was all for naught once things went south in the bottom of the eighth. The loss was the Giants’ seventh in 41 games when leading after seven innings.

What it means

The Giants lost for the 10th time in Tyler Mahle’s 14 starts.

While it was Smith who took the loss, Mahle didn’t do them any favors by failing to complete five innings for the second straight start and surrendering four runs on eight hits.

Who’s hot

Vitello didn’t like the way Gilbert handled himself the last time he was in the Giants’ starting lineup, four games ago, in Tuesday’s loss to the Diamondbacks.

The manager thought his former star at the University of Tennessee allowed his pop-out in the ninth inning of a 5-4 loss Monday night affect his play the following day.

So, he sat him down.

“This is a game of many, many reps,” Vitello said then. “The best guys can separate them and be ready for the next pitch.”

In his return to the starting lineup Sunday, Gilbert made a statement. He was ready for the next pitch. He sent the fourth one he saw soaring into the bullpen beyond right field.

He didn’t stop there, finishing 4-for-4 in the second four-hit game of his career.

“He just really gets charged up,” Vitello said after the game. “It’s a matter of managing that, being aggressive and intense but also being under control. I think the home run came because with two strikes, he was under control and just shortened up a little bit.”

In 12 games against Colorado, Gilbert is batting .480 (12-for-25) with seven extra-base hits, including four of his seven career home runs — a 1.656 OPS.

In 97 career games against any other team, he has 49 hits in 248 at-bats (a .197 average), with only 17 going for extra bases, resulting in a .513 OPS.

Vitello left him in against left-handed reliever Brennan Bernardino in the sixth, too, and Gilbert ripped a two-strike fastball up the middle for his first hit in 24 tries this season without the platoon advantage. It was his third career hit in 42 at-bats against left-handed pitching.

“For him to get his first hit off a left-handed pitcher, in particular a guy throwing sidearm,” Vitello said, “it spoke a lot to where his focus is at.”

Who’s not

Mahle’s outing couldn’t have gotten off to a worse start.

He was called for a pitch-clock violation before he had thrown a pitch, putting him in a 1-0 hole against Jake McCarthy, and the speedy outfielder laced a triple on the first pitch he saw.

It mirrored the way his last start began, serving up a home run to the leadoff man, and the rest played out in about the same underwhelming fashion.

Since tossing 5 ⅔ shutout innings in his return to the rotation, Mahle hasn’t made it through the fifth in either of his ensuing starts. He has surrendered eight runs (seven earned) over 8 ⅔ innings between the two starts, raising his season ERA to 5.70.

“I still feel good with where I’m at,” Mahle said. “It doesn’t look good on the box score, but I felt like I battled, felt like I made some good pitches and started to settle in. That’s life.”

Mahle was solely responsible for the one unearned run on his line, too, making a questionable decision to attempt a pickoff at first base with two strikes, two outs and a runner at third. He airmailed the throw past Devers, allowing the second run of the first inning to score.

Up next

The Giants return home and continue a stretch of 13 straight games leading into the All-Star break. They host Tyler Rogers and the Blue Jays for three games beginning Monday, which will feature another familiar face on the mound: Kevin Gausman (4-7, 4.19 ERA).

Landen Roupp (5-8, 4.55) gets the ball for San Francisco in the series opener. First pitch: 6:45 p.m. PT.

Mariners 4, Blue Jays 0

Cool side of the pillow: Emerson Hancock, .33 WPA

Hot side of the fridge: Colt Emerson, -.05 WPA

Game thread comment of the day:

Same, bestie

Huascar Brazoban has been terrific for the Mets this season. 

Brazoban came into Sunday afternoon having allowed just one run over his last nine appearances, but the right-hander endured as rough an outing he’s had all year. 

After the Mets tacked on five runs against old friend Carlos Carrasco in the top of the ninth, interim manager Andy Green called upon the big man to wrap up the final three outs. 

Brazoban ended up being pulled after recording just one, though. 

He allowed the first four Braves to reach on three singles and a walk before striking out Jorge Mateo on three pitches for the first out of the inning. 

His own throwing error on a pickoff attempt at first also brought in a run. 

Brazoban then gave up a grand slam to slugging Atlanta catcher Drake Baldwin, cutting the big lead all the way down to just two runs and bringing his day to an end. 

Five of the six batters he faced reached, and he allowed five runs. 

“It was just one of those days,” Green said. 

Devin Williams came on and made it even more interesting as the winning run made it’s way into scoring position, but the closer was able to barely hang on for the victory.

The blowup saw Brazoban’s ERA rise from 1.94 to 3.00 on the year. 

“He’s been unbelievable all year,” Green said. “The ERA is 3.00 even after what just happened, that just shows you how good he’s been all year for us, just wasn’t his day.”

Box Score

This three-game series between the Brewers and Diamondbacks was… something. The first two games featured some sloppiness, some bad luck, and some late (Midwestern) nights. After the teams split the first two games, Brandon Sproat and newly minted All-Star Eduardo Rodríguez took to the mound today to determine the series. The All-Star looked like an All-Star, and the other one didn’t, but Milwaukee gritted their teeth, had some good luck, and got a big hit from an All-Star snub to lead them to victory.

Brice Turang led off with a single for the Brewers, his seventh hit of the series after picking up three on Friday and three more on Saturday. But Jackson Chourio struck out chasing a high fastball from Rodríguez, Christian Yelich popped out to short, and Andrew Vaughn flew out down the right-field line.

In the bottom of the first, Sproat started by getting a groundout from Ketel Marte, but the next batter, Geraldo Perdomo, worked to a full count before lining a double into the left-field gap for a one-out double. Corbin Carroll, up next, also picked up a double, this one on a fly ball down the right-field line. Perdomo scored to make it 1-0, and Carroll, one of the league’s fastest players, stood on second base with one out. Sproat then walked Gabriel Moreno, and he was up against the ropes early; through four batters, he’d given up two hits, a run, and a walk, and gone to a full count on three out of four batters, inflating his pitch count. Sproat was able to retire the next batter, Lourdes Gurriel Jr., on a swinging bunt, which advanced the runners to second and third, but Ildemaro Vargas gave Sproat a break and grounded out to second on the first pitch he saw to end the inning. It took 28 pitches, but Sproat was out of the inning with only one run allowed.

The tough batted ball luck that has plagued the Brewers throughout this series reared its head in the second inning. Jake Bauers and Garrett Mitchell hit line drives of 111 and 107 mph on the second and third pitches of the inning, but they were both hit right at outfielders for outs. Gary Sánchez was next, and he did a good job working the count but got under one and flew out to left field to end the inning.

Confidence in Sproat continued to waver when he walked Tim Tawa to start the second inning. After a strikeout of Pavin Smith, Tawa stole second, but Tommy Troy struck out, too, and a Marte ground ball to Vaughn — who made a nice play — ended the inning. Sproat needed another 21 pitches and was already up to 49 through two innings, but the score remained 1-0.

David Hamilton began the third with a lineout to shortstop, and Joey Ortiz grounded out weakly to second. That made eight straight since Turang led off the game with a single, but on his second at-bat, he grounded out weakly to Tawa at first base. Nine straight for Rodríguez, despite just one strikeout and some decent contact.

Perdomo reached to start the third when Hamilton couldn’t handle a hard ground ball. It would’ve been a tough play, and Perdomo was given an infield hit, but Hamilton maybe should’ve been able to make the play. With Carroll batting, Perdomo stole second base to give Arizona a runner in scoring position with nobody out for the middle of the order. Sproat, though, came back to strike out Carroll and Moreno before walking Gurriel Jr. after working to a full count. With two outs and runners on first and second, Vargas again grounded out with two on to end the inning.

Chourio got a ground ball through the infield to give Milwaukee their first hit since the first at-bat of the game. Yelich tried to sneak a bunt in; he didn’t get a hit, but he did advance Chourio. But Vaughn struck out looking (at a pitch that should’ve been a ball, which he did not challenge), and Bauers flew out to right, and the Brewers remained without a run through four.

Sproat started the bottom of the fourth with 73 pitches already on his ledger. Tawa, leading off the inning, fell behind 0-2 quickly but fouled off three more pitches and took two more balls before tapping a grounder down the first-base line that Sproat flipped to Vaughn for the first out. Smith followed with a single into right, and Troy got a hold of one, but it was caught on the fringe of the warning track by Mitchell for the second out. Marte lined a two-out single to put runners on the corners, but after a visit from Chris Hook, Perdomo flew out to left to end the inning.

Mitchell struck out to start the fifth, and Sánchez and Hamilton followed with groundouts. Through five, the extent of the Brewers’ offense was two singles.

Sproat was finished after four. He’d allowed just one run, but each of his four innings was a real struggle; he’d given up five hits and walked three, and it took him 92 pitches to record 12 outs. He was replaced in the fifth by Grant Anderson, who pitched two scoreless innings in Milwaukee’s win on Friday night. He made quick work of the middle of the Arizona order: Carroll popped out, Moreno grounded out, and Gurriel Jr. flew out.

Ortiz and Turang both hit into outs to start the sixth. Chourio tried to spark something with two outs and hit a ball high off the wall in center field for a double — unfortunate that it wasn’t a homer, as it went 109 mph and 423 feet, and would’ve been out in all but one other ballpark. Three pitches later, Yelich flew out to left, and the inning was over.

Vargas tried to bunt for a hit to start the bottom of the inning, but Hamilton was ready and threw him out. Tawa grounded out, too, on a nice play by Ortiz. After five up and five down, Anderson’s day was done as Pat Murphy called for the recently recalled Drew Rom to face the lefty Smith. That move worked, as Rom — with the help of a successful challenge from Sánchez — struck out Smith looking.

Rodríguez kept going in the seventh, but Vaughn led off with a base hit. Sal Frelick came in for Vaughn as a pinch-runner, but it turned out the Brewers didn’t need a pinch-runner: Frelick got to jog around the bases when Bauers got a hold of one and got it up a little higher than his 111-mph drive in the second inning. Bauers’ 16th home run of the season made it 2-1 Milwaukee and ended Rodríguez’s day on a sour note.

Kevin Ginkel was the choice to relieve Rodríguez. He struck out Mitchell to start things out, but Sánchez lined one into the left-field corner for a one-out double. Hamilton hit a line drive into right that was caught; Sánchez was able to advance to third, which allowed him to score easily when Ortiz snuck a grounder into right field. Sánchez probably wouldn’t have been able to score without advancing on Hamilton’s fly ball, so good baserunning by the big fella. Ortiz was thrown out trying to steal second, but Milwaukee had flipped a 1-0 deficit into a 3-1 lead.

Aaron Ashby relieved Rom in the seventh, an inning late to vulture a win but in a big spot to try to get a shutdown inning. Troy picked up a cheap infield hit on a swinging bunt to start the inning, and the dangerous Marte came up as the tying run. He absolutely smoked a ball at 116.8 mph, but he hit it right at Chourio for the first out. Before Ashby threw his first pitch to Perdomo, he allowed Troy to advance to second when a pickoff throw got past Bauers. Perdomo picked up a base hit, too, though Troy, who had to pause for a moment to see if Chourio could catch it, held at third to put runners on the corners with just one out. A walk to Carroll, during which Ashby was not really anywhere near the zone, loaded the bases.

That was it for Ashby, as Murphy made the call to bring Abner Uribe into a tough situation with one out and no room for error. Uribe got the ground ball he needed, but it was hit just a little too slowly, and Moreno was able to beat out a double play, scoring Arizona’s second run in the process. Max Kepler was then called on to pinch-hit with the chance to tie the game, but Uribe struck him out to end the inning with the Brewers still leading, 3-2.

In the eighth, 33-year-old former Brewer farmhand Taylor Clarke was the new pitcher for Arizona. He got Turang to fly out to left for the first out, and Chourio followed with a pop out in foul territory. Yelich had a chance with two outs, but he flew out to left to end the inning.

Uribe continued in the bottom of the inning, but Vargas got a one-ball head start after a confusing pitch timer violation, and Uribe walked the free-swinging Arizona second baseman, just his 15th walk of the season. Tawa laid down a sac bunt to advance Vargas to second, which was followed by a long battle between Uribe and Smith. That battle ended fortunately for Milwaukee: Smith hit a hard line drive at 107.4 mph right at Turang, who tossed to Ortiz for an inning-ending double play.

Milwaukee was unable to muster anything against Arizona righty Drey Jameson in the ninth, so Trevor Megill had to do his work with a one-run lead. Troy became Megill’s first victim on a decently hit fly ball, but as the Brewers have learned, you have to hit it a lot better than “decently” to hit it out to center field in this ballpark. Marte was up next, and after nearly striking out looking on a very close 2-2 pitch, which Sánchez unsuccessfully challenged, he drew a one-out walk.

With the tying run at first, Perdomo — who already had three hits on the day — was up. But Megill got him to pop out to third base for the second out. Megill still needed to get the dangerous Carroll, but Frelick ended the game with a leaping catch on a foul ball down the right-field line.

This was a somewhat gritty win. Milwaukee’s pitching was playing with fire all day, particularly Sproat and Ashby, and the Diamondbacks had some terrible batted ball luck and got a good start out of Rodríguez. But Bauers’ big two-run homer and Ortiz’s clutch, two-out RBI single gave the Brewers enough offense, and Megill — with big assists from Anderson and Uribe — closed the door.

Milwaukee gets no break, as tomorrow they’ll be in St. Louis for the first of a four-day, five-game series that includes a rain makeup from early May. That starts a sprint to the All-Star break in which they’ll play eight games over the next seven days.

Emmet Sheehan faces J.P. Sears as the Dodgers look to sweep the San Diego Padres on Sunday.

SUNDAY GAME INFO

• Teams: Dodgers vs. Padres
• Stadium: Dodger Stadium
• Time: 4:20 p.m. PT
• TV: NBC; Streaming: Peacock
• Radio: Am 570 (English), KTNQ 1020 (Spanish)