The Brewers’ offense was firing on all cylinders today, but it wasn’t enough to overcome the Reds in a high-scoring spring training contest, despite outhitting them 17 to 10.
Hunter Greene is an excellent pitcher who will very likely be a significant foe for the Brewers during their regular season battles with the Reds. But today, he wasn’t fooling anyone. After Matt McLain got the Reds on the board first in the top of the first with a solo home run off of today’s starting pitcher Coleman Crow, the Brewer hitters jumped all over Greene. Sal Frelick hit a 99 mph fastball off the wall in center field for a triple, then scored on a wild pitch. Jackson Chourio got to another 99 mph fastball in the upper part of the zone and drove it at 106.9 mph into right field for a base hit. William Contreras hit another single on the eighth pitch he saw. Brice Turang hit a 100 mph fastball through the hole on the left side of the infield, scoring Chourio. Andrew Vaughn golfed a 100 mph fastball into right to score Contreras, and Greene was pulled from the game: he’d faced five batters, all five of them got hits, and three of them had scored.
Julian Garcia, who relieved Greene, got Gary Sánchez and Joey Ortiz out but Blake Perkins also lined a single into right field, which scored Turang and made it 4-1. David Hamilton followed with another single, the seventh Brewer hit of the inning, but Vaughn was thrown out at home for the third out. An eventful first inning was over with the Brewers ahead 4-1.
After Crow retired the Reds in order in the second, Greene returned for the Reds. He walked Frelick to start the inning but got Chourio to ground into a fielder’s choice and then got Contreras to ground into a double play, and his second inning was much smoother than his first.
Ángel Zerpa pitched a clean third for Milwaukee as the first pitcher off the bench. The Brewers got a couple hits in the bottom of the third, from Vaughn and Ortiz, but did not add to their lead.
Jared Koenig struggled a bit in the fourth. McLain and Elly De La Cruz started the inning with a single and a double, and after a Sal Stewart strikeout, Spencer Steer walked to load the bases. The next batter, Blake Dunn, cleared the bases with a double into the left field corner, and that was all for Koenig after 22 pitches. Jesús Broca replaced Koenig and struck out Christian Encarnacion-Strand for the second out, but Dane Myers knocked a single into right to give the Reds a 5-4 lead.
The Brewers got a couple baserunners to start the bottom of the fourth when Hamilton picked up his second hit (and stole second base) and Frelick walked, but Chourio struck out and Contreras grounded into his second double play of the game.
Rob Zastryzny pitched a 1-2-3 top of the fifth. Turang led off the Brewer half of the inning with a walk and Vaughn snuck a bouncer through the middle for his third single of the day. The next two batters struck out, but Perkins got around on a fastball up and in and lined it into the right-field corner for a run-scoring double.
Sammy Peralta pitched in the sixth for the Brewers, and a couple guys on but he thought he was out of the inning when Myers looked at strike three on a 2-2 pitch… only to challenge it, get it overturned, and then line a two-run double into left on the very next pitch. Two pitches later, and another double, this one from Will Banfield, extended Cincinnati’s lead to 8-5.
Luis Lara led off the bottom of the sixth with a ground-rule double, advanced to third on a Chourio groundout, and scored on a Contreras groundout. The Reds added one on a Michael Chavis solo homer off of Joe Corbett in the seventh, and big-time Brewer prospect Andrew Fischer smoked a homer at 110 mph to right field in the eighth. Jesús Made tried to spark a two-out rally in the ninth when he hit a 111 mph single and then stole second base, but the game ended one batter later, and Cincinnati won 9-7.
Brewers regulars showed out today: they had 12 hits through five innings. Highlights included Vaughn (3-for-3, an RBI), Frelick (1-for-1, a triple, two walks, a run), Turang (1-for-2, two runs, an RBI, a walk), Perkins (2-for-3, a double, two RBI), and Hamilton (2-for-2). The additional extra-base hits belonged to Lara (a double) and Fischer (the homer).
On the pitching side, Milwaukee got clean innings from Zastryzny, Zerpa, Brian Fitzpatrick, and Mark Manfredi. Among other notable pitchers, Koenig struggled (four earned runs, three hits, a walk, one out), as did Peralta (three runs on three hits in one inning).