The Brewers dropped both ends of split-squad action today. At home, the “varsity” squad faced the Los Angeles Angels with Kyle Harrison the first guy on the mound. Harrison had to leave early because of a blister, but got beat up a little bit to the tune of four runs — only one earned — in 2 2/3 innings. The bullpen did their job, and the Brewer offense nearly fought all the way back, but they couldn’t quite complete the comeback and lost 4-3. In Peoria, the “JV” team faced the Seattle Mariners behind starting pitcher Carlos Rodriguez. For the first few innings, it was a see-saw affair, but Seattle scored three in the fifth to take a 7-3 lead, and the score didn’t change after that.
Today wasn’t a great outing for Harrison, a guy trying to make an impression on the folks who make the roster decisions; his fastball sat 92-93 (down a little bit from usual) and while he was still missing bats (10 whiffs, three strikeouts) he gave up four hits and four runs in his outing, though only one of those runs was earned — three of them came when Jeimer Candelario popped a three-run homer immediately following a two-out fielding error by Luis Rengifo. I would assume the blister that forced him from the game early will not be a lingering issue.
The rest of the Brewer pitching staff fared better against the Angels. After Jesús Broca finished the third, Garrett Stallings was fortunate to not allow more runs in the fourth: Denzer Guzman and Randy De Jesus led off the inning with a double and single, respectively, but Guzman was retired on a fielder’s choice, Candelario struck out, and with two outs De Jesus was gunned down at home by Garrett Mitchell after a Donovan Walton single. So Stallings allowed three hits in the inning but no runs.
As for offensive notables in the Angels game, Jake Bauers was 2-for-4 with a double and his fourth spring homer (110 mph and 432 feet, no cheapie), Luis Rengifo was 1-for-3 with a solo homer (his second), and Andrew Vaughn was 2-for-3 with an RBI. Against Seattle, Tyler Black, Blake Perkins, Cooper Pratt, and Marco Dinges all had multiple hits; Black had a two-RBI triple and a sac fly, giving him three RBIs on the day. Dinges had the team’s only other extra-base hit, a double.
The other “headliner” pitchers in this game performed quite well. Aaron Ashby pitched two hitless innings, allowing only a walk while striking out two. His spring training ERA is down to 1.35, and his fastball reached 97.7 mph in this one. DL Hall also threw two scoreless innings; he allowed a two-out double in his second inning, but retired the side on the next batter. Hall struck out three, didn’t walk anyone, and his fastball topped out at an encouraging 95.1 mph, though most of his fastballs were in the 93-94 range. Brian Fitzpatrick finished things off by striking out the side in the ninth after the leadoff hitter reached on an error.
In the Seattle game, Rodriguez got beat up a bit, as he allowed four earned runs on three hits and three walks in four innings, including homers given up to Brendan Donovan and Luke Raley. Easton McGee also got banged around to the tune of three runs on two hits and a walk (and some bad sequencing) in his one inning; Randy Arozarena hit a two-out, two-run homer after Raley had already doubled in a run. Sammy Peralta, Drew Rom, and Peter Strzelecki all pitched scoreless innings after that.
Not exactly a day to write home about. The Brewers have a rare spring training night game tomorrow, when they’ll take on the Rangers at 8:10 p.m. CT. Brandon Woodruff is expected to start that game, his second outing of the spring.