Great American Ballpark? A hot, late summer night? Runs.
Following a 50-minute rain delay, neither Shane Drohan nor Rhett Lowder, the game’s starting pitchers, had it. Big numbers went on the scoreboard early, and by the end of the third inning we’d seen 10 runs and five lead changes. But Milwaukee struck a heavy body blow in the top of the fifth and handed the game over to their bullpen, who locked things down and led them to the finish line.
Lowder worked around a Jake Bauers walk in the top of the first. In the bottom of the inning, the Reds got the scoring started with some small ball. Dane Myers reached on an infield single, and the next batter, Elly De La Cruz, knocked him in with a well-placed grounder that got into left field. Drohan efficiently got through the rest of the inning — Sal Stewart lined out on the first pitch he saw, and three pitches after that Tyler Stephenson grounded into a 5-4-3 double play to end the inning — but the Reds had an early lead.
Milwaukee, though, had an immediate answer. With one out, Brice Turang, who was moved down in the lineup today after struggling badly in the Chicago series, jumped on the first pitch and lined a single to center. The next batter, Garrett Mitchell, fell behind 0-2 but got a slider too close to the zone and crushed a double into the right field corner. Turang held at third, but scored when Cooper Pratt grounded into an RBI fielder’s choice. With two outs, David Hamilton then came through with a grounder just inside the first base line that went into the corner—Hamilton ended up with a triple, and Mitchell scored, giving the Brewers a 2-1 lead. Sal Frelick very nearly increased that lead when it looked like he homered to center, by Myers got up and pulled back a home run, robbing the Brewers of two runs.
Cincinnati carried that momentum into bottom of the second. Drohan walked the leadoff hitter, Eugenio Suárez, and after a JJ Bleday flyout, Matt McLain snuck one just over the wall in left-center — it actually bounced off the top of the high wall out there and went over for a two-run homer that restored the Reds’ lead. Drohan got the next two to get out of the inning, but the Brewer offense was behind again.
Not for long, though! Bauers walked again to start the third — he’d seen nine pitches over two at-bats and walked twice — to get Milwaukee going. Fielder’s choice groundouts by Jackson Chourio and Christian Yelich gave the Reds two outs, but William Contreras kept the inning alive with a walk. That led to Turang’s second plate appearance, and the struggling Brewer came through again with a deep fly ball that bounced off the base of the wall in right field. Both runners scored on what was a double for Turang, and the Brewers were back on top.
Once again, not for long! With one out in the bottom of the third, De La Cruz singled. Drohan retired Stewart but walked Stephenson before Suárez came through with a two-out, two-strike, three-run homer, the kind of hit that can be a real backbreaker. Cincinnati led 6-4, and we’d already had five lead changes through six half-innings.
Could the Brewers muster another immediate answer? Hamilton picked up his second hit with a one-out single, and after a Frelick flyout, advanced to second on his 26th stolen base of the season. But Bauers, despite a long battle, struck out and the inning was over — the first zero on the scoreboard since the top of the first.
Drohan was in need of a quick, clean inning, as he was approaching 70 pitches as the bottom of the fourth started. He got it: McLain grounded out, and Héctor Rodríguez and Edwin Arroyo struck out, and the Reds were held off the board for the first time all night.
Chourio got the Brewers off on the right foot in the fifth with a base hit through the right side. Yelich was next, and he fell behind 0-2 but then took four straight balls out of the zone and Milwaukee was set up nicely with runners on first and second and nobody out. Contreras was next and hit what should’ve been a rally-killing double play… but De La Cruz booted it at shortstop, everyone was safe, and the Brewers had the bases loaded. (To give De La Cruz some benefit of the doubt, it was a 107-mph ground ball. Still a play he should’ve made, and it was ruled as such.)
That was the end of the line for Lowder, who was pulled in favor of lefty Sam Moll, who entered with Turang and Mitchell due up. Moll got ahead of Turang 0-2 with some help from ABS, but the next three pitches missed way wide and the one after that rode up and in and got Turang on the inside of the back elbow. Chourio trotted home to make it 6-5, and the Brewers were still in business… and Turang was fine after a brief visit from the trainer and a jovial Pat Murphy.
Sensing a chance to take control of the game, Murphy chose at that point also to play the matchup, and removed Mitchell in favor of bases-loaded-specialist Luis Lara, who came in 4-for-9 on the season with the bases jacked. It didn’t work out this time: Lara worked to a full count but took a pitch that just clipped the low inside corner, and lost a challenge trying to get it. Really close pitch, but Lara was the first out of the inning. The Brewers still had a golden opportunity to tie the game or retake the lead, though, and they did that emphatically when Pratt went with a ball that was about a foot outside and drove it into the right-field corner for a bases-clearing triple. On the next pitch, Moll’s sweeper nearly hit Hamilton (who was showing bunt), it got past Stephenson, and Pratt raced home from third. Brewers up 9-6.
Moll got the Reds out of the inning, but the damage was done, and the Brewers were then able to hand the game over to their bullpen, which has generally been bad news for trailing opponents lately. The first man out was Chad Patrick, who worked around a one-out De La Cruz single to put up a zero in the fifth.
Milwaukee was back at it in the sixth. Bauers led off by punching a single through the left side, advanced on a balk, and after a Chourio strikeout and a Yelich groundout, scored when Contreras ripped a double into the gap. After a pitching change, Lara struck out to end the inning, but Milwaukee’s lead was up to four.
Patrick walked Bleday with one out in the bottom of the sixth. After a McLain flyout, Rodríguez put up quite a fight, and after nine pitches drew another walk with two outs. But a visit from Chris Hook calmed things down, and the newly promoted Carlos Jorge, off the bench for his first major league at-bat, flew out to left to end the inning.
Pierce Johnson was the new Cincinnati pitcher in the seventh. Frelick ripped a two-out double, but nothing came of it, and the Brewers did not score in their half of the seventh. The Reds picked up a run off of Antonio Senzatela in the bottom of the inning, after Myers doubled and Stephenson knocked him in with a single, but a double play ended the inning with the score at 10-7.
A Yelich single went for naught in the top of the eighth. Aaron Ashby was the Brewer pitcher in the bottom of the inning, and he walked Bleday with one out but struck out the next two batters to end the inning. The Brewers brought Trevor Megill on to close the door, and he did so emphatically by striking out the side in order.
It was a big day for the Brewers offense, and in particular, a big day for one struggling brewer: Turang. He went 3-for-4 with a two-run double, two runs scored, and an RBI hit-by-pitch. Pratt also had a big night — just one hit, his three-RBI triple, but he got on with a walk, too, scored a run, and stole a base. Every other Brewer except Lara (who came in late) had at least one hit (Hamilton had two, including his RBI triple). On the pitching side, Drohan struggled on the evening, but it was another solid night for the bullpen: Patrick, Senzatela, Ashby, and Megill combined for five innings of one-run ball.
Another solid bounce-back win for the Brewers puts them in good position to win another series. Game two is tomorrow night at 5:40 p.m.
