The Brewers didn’t quite put on the show that they did on Opening Day in defeating the White Sox on Saturday evening. But what they did do was demonstrate the difference between teams that do do the little things right and teams that don’t do the little things right. But behind a good-enough outing for starter Chad Patrick, a good night for the Brewer bullpen, and a whole bunch of singles, walks, and stolen bases, the Brewers came away with a comfortable 6-1 victory.
William Contreras used a Brewers challenge — unsuccessfully — during the first at-bat of the game, when Chase Meidroth took a 2-0 pitch from Patrick just high that was upheld on review. Patrick did come back to get Meidroth to ground out, but starting the game down a challenge wasn’t great. Patrick got the second out with a strikeout of Colson Montgomery, but then two batters reached with two outs when Andrew Benintendi hit a single to left and Munetaka Murakami walked. But a Lenyn Sosa pop-up ended the inning with no further damage done.
Brice Turang led off the bottom of the first by giving a ball a ride to the opposite field off of Chicago starter Sean Burke. For a minute, it looked like it might make it out, and then it looked like it was going to be caught, but instead it landed near the base of the wall and near left fielder Andrew Benintendi’s feet and resulted in a double (though that’s tough for Burke, as it should have been caught). After a near-miss on a foul ball (on a pitch about five inches above the zone), Contreras hit a grounder back to Burke that resulted in an out but advanced Turang to third with one out. Chicago pulled the infield in against Christian Yelich, who took advantage and hit a grounder through the hole between Murakami at first and Meidroth at second that scored Turang for the game’s first run.
The White Sox’s questionable defense continued to rear its head when Jake Bauers hit another single through the right side, and the throw came to third (too late to get Yelich) instead of second, allowing Bauers to move up to second base and give Milwaukee two runners in scoring position with one out. It paid off right away when Garrett Mitchell jumped on the first pitch and drilled a two-RBI single through the middle, the first really hard hit ball of the game for the Brewers, knocking in the game’s second and third runs.
Mitchell stole second during a classic, pesky Sal Frelick at-bat, but Burke won that battle when Frelick flew out to shallow left on the 10th pitch. Burke struck out Joey Ortiz to end the inning, but Milwaukee sent seven batters to the plate, saw 29 pitches, and scored three runs in the first inning.
Former Brewers draft pick and farmhand Tristan Peters (who was traded for Trevor Rosenthal once upon a time) struck out looking to start the second, unsuccessfully burning a challenge in the process. Everson Pereira grounded out on a check swing blooper to first base, and Reese McGuire struck out on three pitches, giving Patrick a three-up, three-down second inning.
After Burke quickly got the first two outs in the bottom of the second, Turang snuck another double into left, this one a blooper down the line that landed just out of Benintendi’s reach (and, according to Statcast, should certainly have been caught). Contreras drew an eight-pitch walk to put two on for Yelich, who hit a dribbler to third base that would’ve been an infield hit, but the throw from Burke — which was late anyway — was in the dirt, and while Murakami kept it in the infield, Turang was able to score from third. Yelich stole second with Bauers at the plate, and Bauers worked the count back full from 0-2, but he struck out looking to end the inning. Burke, though, needed 34 pitches in the second after throwing 29 in the first, putting him in critical pitch-count condition through two innings.
Meidroth hit a one-out single in the third, but Chicago got nothing else off of Patrick. Burke got back-to-back strikeouts on Mitchell and Frelick to start the bottom of the inning, and Frelick burned the Brewers’ second (and final) challenge trying to overturn the pitch he looked at for strike three. Ortiz extended the inning with a two-out single up the middle, and he stole second base to give Hamilton a shot with a runner in scoring position. Hamilton nearly beat a dribbler to third for an infield hit — he was called safe on the field, but the play was overturned on a Chicago challenge, and the White Sox were out of the inning.
Murakami got a 92-mph fastball right down the pipe to start the fourth inning, and if there’s one positive thing we’ve seen in these two games for the White Sox, it’s that that guy has some real power if he gets a hold of one. This one ended up 409 feet away, and the Brewers’ lead was cut to 4-1. With one out, Peters had a nice moment when he dumped a fly ball into center that Mitchell couldn’t quite get to — it came off the end of his glove — and Peters ended up at second for a double, his first major league hit in the ballpark of the team that drafted him. But Patrick struck out Pereira and got McGuire to fly out to left, and Peters was stranded at second.
The Brewers went down in order in the bottom of the fourth (though Turang nearly doubled again on a ball that went just foul, and then hit a 106-mph, 398-foot fly ball that was caught on the warning track in dead center).
The White Sox were on Patrick to start the fifth. Luisangel Acuña hit a fly ball at 106 mph that Mitchell made a nice play on for the first out, and Meidroth hit a ground-rule double into the right-field gap with one out. With three lefties due up, Pat Murphy opted to move for Aaron Ashby at that point. Ashby walked the first batter, Montgomery, but he got pinch-hitter Austin Hays on a weak comebacker to the mound and struck out Murakami to end the inning.
Patrick finished with 4 1/3 innings pitched and, with the assist from Ashby, one run allowed on five hits, a walk, and four strikeouts. He threw 74 pitches and wasn’t always sharp, but mostly got away with it today.
With four lefties due up in the bottom of the fifth, the White Sox moved to the left-handed Chris Murphy, ending Burke’s (somewhat unlucky) day. Yelich struck out, and in a rare opportunity against a lefty (which might be more numerous with Andrew Vaughn on the shelf), Bauers nearly had an extra-base hit down the right-field line, but Murakami made a diving stab and tagged first for the second out. Mitchell walked, but Frelick grounded out to end the inning.
Ashby was back out in the sixth and issued a one-out walk but otherwise struck out the side. After a bit of a lull from the Brewers’ offense from the third through fifth innings, they got something going again in the sixth against the new pitcher, Grant Taylor. With one out, Hamilton walked and stole second — Murphy stuff — then scored when Lockridge hit a ground ball into right center for an RBI single that made it 5-1. Turang followed with a single to left, his third hit. After a visit to the mound, Chicago elected to stay with the right-handed Taylor instead of switching to lefty old friend Bryan Hudson to face Yelich, but they got away with it — Yelich struck out swinging at a 1-2 curveball that appeared to bounce in the grass in front of home plate, and Taylor was out of it with just one run in.
Brewer fandom got its first look at Ángel Zerpa in the seventh when he came in to relieve Ashby. After a slight PitchCom delay, he got two quick outs on ground balls. Montgomery lined a two-out single to right for his first hit of the season, and Hays followed with another hit, and when Lockridge misplayed the ball in left, Montgomery tried to score from first. But Lockridge recovered in time to start a perfect 7-6-2 relay that nailed Montgomery at home for the third out.
Hudson did indeed enter for Chicago in the seventh, and struck out Bauers looking on a 3-2 pitch to start the inning. Mitchell slapped a single through the left side of the infield for a one-out hit, his second. With Frelick battling again, Mitchell stole second for the second time on the night, but Frelick struck out when he couldn’t check his swing on a 3-2 pitch way off the plate. Ortiz still had a shot with a runner in scoring position and two outs, and he came through with another single up the middle, his second hit of the night and third RBI of the season.
A balk advanced Ortiz to second with Hamilton at the plate, and Ortiz stole third on a pitch that Hamilton watched for ball four, putting runners on the corners with two out for Lockridge, and after another stolen base and another walk, the bases were loaded, and Hudson was out of the game after 33 pitches. The batter was Turang, who was already 3-for-4 with two doubles and a very loud fly out, and the pitcher was Jedixson Paez, who the Brewers got for three runs in 1 1/3 innings on Thursday… but Turang got under the first pitch, and while he hit it 102 mph, he hit it too high to do any damage and it was caught in center for the third out.
Abner Uribe was on for his first appearance of the season in the eighth. He got the first out when Murakami hit a ground ball in front of the plate, but during the second plate appearance, Uribe acted like something tightened up on him somewhere around his waist. After the training staff checked on him, he stayed in the game. Mildly concerning, and we’ll keep an eye on it, but he looked no worse for the wear, as he struck out Sosa with a 98-mph sinker and got pinch hitter Miguel Vargas looking with a slider that may have been successfully challenged had Sosa not burned the White Sox’s second challenge in the previous at-bat.
The White Sox got some work for their new closer, Seranthony Dominguez, in the bottom of the eighth. Contreras nearly hit an opposite-field homer to start the inning, but it was caught on the warning track by Pereira for the first out. Yelich lined a solid single into left with one out, his third hit, but Bauers flew out to center, and Mitchell popped out in foul territory.
With a five-run lead, the Brewers went to DL Hall in the ninth, and he did what you don’t want in that situation and walked the leadoff hitter, Pereira. But Hall struck out pinch-hitter Edgar Quero looking, and Acuña grounded into a 6-4-3 double play, and the game was over.
The Brewers finished with 12 hits and five walks today in a balanced attack. Turang and Yelich both went 3-for-5 (with Turang’s two doubles as the team’s only extra-base hits), and Mitchell and Ortiz were both 2-for-4, with Mitchell adding a walk. Milwaukee also ran wild today and went 7-for-7 in stolen bases, just the fifth time in franchise history they’ve stolen that many, with two of those to Mitchell, two to Ortiz, two to Hamilton, and one to Yelich.
Milwaukee will go for the sweep tomorrow afternoon in the series finale at 1:10 p.m. when Brandon Sproat makes his Brewers debut against Chicago lefty Anthony Kay.