Today was a matchup of two of the early 2020s biggest pitching stars, a former Cy Young Award winner versus a two-time All-Star and top-five Cy Young finisher. But it was the elder Brandon Woodruff who got the best of an uncharacteristically wild Sandy Alcantara today, and Brice Turang reached base four times, homered, and knocked in three runs to lead the Brewers to a comfortable 5-2 victory.
On Alcantara’s second pitch of the game, Sal Frelick hit a well-placed soft line drive to shortstop that was fielded on a bounce by Otto Lopez, who could not get it to first base in time to beat the speedy Frelick. But Frelick was followed by two Brewers who made solid contact, but weren’t as lucky with their placement: William Contreras hit a 101 mph fly ball to center, which was caught, and Brice Turang hit a hard ground ball up the middle, straight at Lopez, who was positioned to easily turn a double play.
The Marlins were aggressive against Woodruff in the bottom of the first, and made some decent contact, but had nothing to show for it: Woodruff needed just nine pitches to retire Jakob Marsee, Xavier Edwards, and Agustín Ramírez.
Alcantara struck out Gary Sánchez and got a groundout from Jake Bauers to start the second, but with two outs Luis Rengifo lined a double into the left-field corner—in a bizarre statistical quirk, that gave Rengifo six doubles out of only nine total hits on the season. Garrett Mitchell followed with a walk, but Brandon Lockridge grounded out to end the inning and the Brewers couldn’t quite come through on the two-out rally. They did, however, make the ultra-efficient Alcantara throw 22 pitches in the second inning.
Woodruff got ahead of Liam Hicks to start the bottom of the second, but couldn’t put him away, and Hicks ended up at first with an infield hit when Ortiz was able to dive and stop a ground ball but was unable to make a throw. Ortiz made a nice play on the next batter, when Lopez hit a chopper to short that Ortiz threw him out on (with the aid of a nice pick from Bauers). Connor Norby, though, came through with a clean ground-ball single up the middle, which scored Hicks from second. Neither of Miami’s hits was hit all that hard, but they were hit in the right spots. Woodruff got the last two outs with a couple of fly balls to keep the deficit at one.
Ortiz drew a leadoff walk in the third, and after a Frelick fly out, Alcantara walked Contreras and Turang, too—an unusual bout of wildness for Alcantara, who came in with just six walks in 30 1/3 innings. The three walks loaded the bases for Sánchez, but unfortunately this was a meeting of skillsets that did not work in the Brewers’ favor: Alcantara, who gets a lot of double plays, got a ground ball from Sánchez, who probably would’ve beaten the throw to first if he were anyone else on the Brewers. But he is Gary Sánchez, and beating double play relays is not his strong suit, and the Brewers were unable to answer the Marlins’ opening run.
Like Alcantara, Woodruff also walked the number-nine hitter to start the bottom of the inning, in this case Javier Sanoja. Marsee did Woodruff a favor by flying out on the first pitch he saw, and Edwards burned the Marlins’ second ABS challenge in the process of striking out. Ramírez worked back from 0-2 to 3-2 but grounded out to short to end the inning.
Bauers led off the fourth with a fly ball to the warning track in left, but it didn’t have quite enough juice to get out. Rengifo drew a one-out walk, Alcantara’s fifth of the game, and he advanced to second on a groundout from Mitchell. Lockridge fell behind 0-2, but fouled off three 0-2 pitches before lining an RBI single into center that tied the game. Lockridge continued his good inning with a steal of second with Ortiz at the plate, but Ortiz popped out to end the inning. Still, tie game.
Hicks picked up a single with a soft line drive to center on a 1-2 pitch to start the bottom of the fourth. Some defensive confusion followed: Lopez hit a ground ball to Bauers, who started a throw to second, but changed his mind. Bauers instead turned and tossed to Woodruff, who seemed to think that Bauers had thrown it to second, and he wasn’t looking, and the ball went by him. But the Marlins were confused, too, and Contreras, who backed up the play, was able to throw Hicks out at third. It was scored as an E3, with a fielder’s choice at third. Norby followed and hit a ball hard to deep center, but it held up for Mitchell, who caught it on the warning track. Lopez tagged and advanced to third, but he was stranded there when Owen Caissie struck out looking (on a 95.7 mph fastball, his hardest of the game).
The Brewers had the top of the order against Alcantara in the top of the fifth. Frelick popped out for the first out, and it looked like Contreras should’ve grounded out, but Edwards, the second baseman, just missed the ball, and it trickled into center field and the hustling Brewer catcher made it into second base. It would have been a sort of tough play for Edwards, who moved quite a ways to get there, but it certainly looked like a play that should’ve been made—the official scorer, though, generously gave Contreras a double. Whether Contreras reached on an error or not didn’t matter when, on the very next pitch, Turang blew up an Alcantara cutter right down the middle and hit it out over the wall in right-center. 3-1 Brewers.
Alcantara walked his sixth batter, Sánchez, after the homer; that tied his career high for a single game, and matched the total number he’d walked through his first four starts this season. Sánchez moved to second on a wild pitch, but Bauers popped out and Rengifo lined out to left (on a batted ball with a .770 xBA, credit to the Marlins’ defensive positioning) and the inning ended.
Woodruff retired Miami in order on three fly balls in the fifth. Alcantara’s afternoon was over when he was relieved by Anthony Bender, but Miami’s wildness was not. Mitchell drew his second walk to lead off the sixth and stole second to give the Brewers a prime chance to add on. Lockridge struck out, but with Ortiz at the plate Mitchell advanced to third on a wild pitch and then Ortiz drew his second walk, too. With runners on the corners, Miami brought its infield in, and Frelick hit a chopper to second. Lopez threw home, and Mitchell was called out at home, but Milwaukee challenged the call and it was overturned.
Frelick was credited with an RBI fielder’s choice, and the Brewers still had runners on first and second with just one out. Bender struck out Contreras for the second out, but Turang lined a single to center that scored Ortiz and made it 5-1. Sánchez was hit between the shoulder blades with a 97 mph sinker that got away from Bender, and that was his last pitch; with the bases loaded and Bauers up, Miami moved to Lake Bachar—surprisingly, not a lefty. Bauers made hard contact on a hanging curveball, but lined out to left field and the inning ended.
Woodruff was back out for the sixth and had only thrown 65 pitches. He worked quickly through the sixth, too, with a major assist from Lockridge, when a pop fly that looked like it was going to be a bloop hit ended up in the glove of the Brewer left fielder, who caught it on a full dive.
Bachar continued in the seventh and allowed a two-out walk to Lockridge but otherwise had no trouble. Woodruff was back out for the seventh with his pitch count at 75. He got Lopez to fly out to right, and then Lockridge almost made another spectacular play not unlike the great catch he made in foul territory in Milwaukee on Wednesday. Woody did get that batter, Norby, to pop out, and after a bit of a battle he struck out Caissie to put a cherry on top of a very good day.
Woodruff became the first Brewer pitcher to complete seven innings this season. He threw 92 pitches, and allowed only four baserunners, three hits and a walk. The only blemish was the run that resulted from two sub-95mph ground balls in the second inning, and he struck out four. He finished his outing stronger than he started it, by retiring 11 straight Marlins.
In his third inning of work, Bachar gave up a two-out walk to Turang but had no other trouble. Woodruff was replaced in the bottom of the inning by Jake Woodford (no relation). Woodford got two quick ground-ball outs, allowed back-to-back two-out singles to Marsee and Edwards, but got out of it with a ground ball from Ramírez that ended the inning.
Lefty John King was the new Marlins pitcher in the ninth, and he issued a two-out walk to Mitchell (his third and the team’s 11th today) but struck out Lockridge on three pitches to end it. With a four-run lead in place, Woodford was given a chance to finish the game in the bottom of the ninth. One-out singles from Lopez and Norby prompted a visit from Chris Hook while Abner Uribe warmed in the bullpen, and another hit, this one by Caissie, loaded the bases and ended Woodford’s afternoon.
Uribe entered with a four-run cushion and only two outs to get but with the tying run at the plate. On Uribe’s first pitch, Heriberto Hernández hit a grounder to third. Rengifo threw to second for the second out, but Turang held the ball instead of trying for the double play, and a run crossed for Miami. They were down to their last out, though, and Sanoja grounded out harmlessly to second and the game was over.
That’s four in a row for Milwaukee, and a second straight series victory after their slide of a week and a half ago. Woodruff was the big star today, but Turang carried the offense: he was 2-for-3 with a home run, three RBI, and two walks. Frelick and Lockridge also contributed RBI, while Mitchell walked three times and Ortiz did so twice.
The Brewers will go for a sweep tomorrow when these two teams will participate in another good pitching matchup: Jacob Misiorowski versus Eury Pérez. That game is at 12:40 p.m.
