The Brewers and Royals played a game with a lot of baserunners but not a lot of action tonight, except for one big inning. The Royals busted the game open with a five-run, two-out rally in the sixth, an inning full of sloppiness on Milwaukee’s part, a Royals inning that felt almost Brewers-y. The Brewers, meanwhile, weren’t able to muster much offensively, and ended up settling with a split of today’s doubleheader (here’s the recap of the first game, if you would like some happier reading). Hopefully, the game was the only thing the Brewers lost tonight, as Sal Frelick became the latest Brewers position player to deal with an injury when he exited the game after hitting a single in the fourth inning.
Royals starter Seth Lugo was on his game early tonight, and retired the first six Brewer hitters. Logan Henderson, Milwaukee’s 27th man and tonight’s starter, wasn’t quite as sharp. In the first inning, Maikel Garcia led off with a single but was erased when trying to steal second on a perfect throw from Gary Sánchez.
In the second inning, the Kansas City leadoff hitter reached again when Salvador Perez walked. Jac Caglianone flew out for the first out, but Jonathan India hit a single and Carter Jensen put the first runs on the board with a two-run double into the right field corner. Henderson retired Isaac Collins and Kyle Isbel to end the inning and limit the damage, but in a flip of the early game, it was the Royals, not the Brewers, who led 2-0 through two innings.
David Hamilton was the first Brewer baserunner following a great at-bat to lead off the third: he fouled off four straight 1-2 pitches before knocking a single through the infield on the eighth pitch he saw. Blake Perkins battled with Hamilton on first and made Lugo throw nine more pitches, but he struck out. Joey Ortiz struck out, too, but Brice Turang hit a fly ball into a good spot in left that Collins couldn’t catch on a dive, and Turang ended up at third base with an RBI triple.
Garrett Mitchell was next, and Lugo left a mistake right over the middle, a hanging sweeper in a 2-1 count, that Mitchell laced it into the right field gap. Mitchell had a double, his third run-scoring extra-base hit of the day (after two in the day game), and Turang scored to tie the game at two. Lugo got Christian Yelich to end the inning, but the Brewers had two big two-out RBIs, and Lugo was all the way up to 63 pitches through three innings.
Henderson, who isn’t fully stretched out and threw only 45 pitches in his one start at Triple-A Nashville earlier this week, was done after two innings and 35 pitches (and a long layoff in the top of the third). The originally scheduled starter, Brandon Sproat, was on against the top of the Royals’ order. He got Garcia to strike out and then made Bobby Witt Jr. look like a much worse baseball player than he is with a nasty sinker that Witt swung over for strike three. A Vinnie Pasquantino walk extended the inning, but Perez hit a harmless grounder to short, and the inning was over.
Sal Frelick hit a two-out single in the top of the fourth, but he appeared to wince as he got to first. After a visit from Pat Murphy and the team’s athletic trainer, Frelick was removed in favor of Brandon Lockridge. Hopefully the Brewers don’t have a third injury-list addition early this season, but we’ll keep an eye out for updates (Sophia Minnaert later reported “left side tightness”). Lockridge, the injury replacement, stole second, and Hamilton had another long plate appearance before drawing a walk to put runners on first and second. Perkins walked, too, and — gasp — Ortiz was up with the bases loaded. Unfortunately, he struck out, looking a bit foolish on a 2-2 slurve off the outside of the plate. The game remained tied, but Lugo was all the way up to 91 pitches through four.
Sproat’s second inning didn’t go quite as smoothly, but he contributed to getting himself out of it. After Caglianone walked to start things, India struck out, and then Sproat picked Caglianone off at first base. A Jensen flyout to left ended the inning with no damage.
Lugo kept going in the fifth, which he may not have done had today not been a doubleheader. But Lugo struck out Turang, and he got the second out after Mitchell appeared to have an infield hit but was called out upon review. On the next pitch, Lugo’s 103rd, Yelich grounded out to end the inning.
Sproat again walked the leadoff batter, Collins, in the bottom of the fifth. After a visit from Chris Hook, Milwaukee got the first out when Kyle Isbel bunted Collins to second. Garcia hit a sinking line drive into left that looked destined for the grass, but Lockridge — quite a luxury in left field — came out of nowhere and made a sliding catch for the second out. Sproat still needed to get Witt to get out of the inning, but he needed only three pitches to strike him out for the second time. The game remained tied heading to the sixth.
Old friend Nick Mears was on the hill for Kansas City in relief of Lugo, and he had no trouble putting Jake Bauers, Sánchez, and Lockridge in order. Sproat did get the leadoff hitter in the bottom of the inning, which is good, but Perez got him with one out and hit a first-pitch curveball out to center field. Sproat recovered to strike out Caglianone (an at-bat that featured two challenges by Caglianone, the second an unsuccessful one on a 3-2 pitch), but India and Jensen hit back-to-back two-out singles to put runners on the corners. Collins was up for what felt like a momentous at-bat, and he delivered an RBI single up the middle on a 2-2 pitch that increased KC’s lead to 4-2.
That was the last pitch for Sproat, who was replaced by Jared Koenig. Koenig fell behind the nine-hole-hitter Isbel 3-0 before serving up a 3-1, 92-mph sinker right down the middle that Isbel lined into center for another RBI single. Garcia, up next, also got a pitch right down the middle — this one a changeup — and hit a double down the left field line that scored another. After an intentional walk to Witt, Pasquantino hit a chopper at Bauers, which he couldn’t snag. The team’s first error of the year (!) resulted in another run, and a wild pitch scored another, and after another intentional walk (this one to Perez), Caglianone finally grounded out to end the inning. Between Caglianone’s strikeout for the second out and his groundout to end the inning, eight straight Royals reached, five of them scored, and the Brewers were in an 8-2 hole.
Sproat looked better today, but he was still fighting his control. The stuff is certainly intriguing — he throws hard, and it moves. The issue right now is that he doesn’t really seem to know where it’s going to go. He didn’t get much of an assist from Koenig today, but his final line was four runs allowed in 3 2/3 innings on four hits, three walks, and four strikeouts.
With one out in the top of the seventh, Perkins hit a fly ball down the left-field line that should have been caught, but it bounced out of Collins’ glove (apparently in fair territory), and Perkins ended up at second on a two-base error. The next batter, Ortiz, hit a ball up the middle that India fielded but on which he had no throw, so Milwaukee had runners on the corners with one out for the top of the order. But Turang struck out on three pitches, and Mitchell struck out on four, and the Royals’ 27th man, Eli Morgan, had a zero on the board.
DL Hall worked around a four-pitch walk and two wild pitches to put up a zero in the bottom of the seventh. Luis Matos made his Brewers debut to lead off the eighth (he replaced Yelich, who was removed merely for blowout purposes), and he drew a four-pitch walk. But one pitch later, Bauers grounded into a fielder’s choice that erased Matos, then Sánchez struck out, and Lockridge grounded out to third.
Hall remained for Milwaukee in the bottom of the eighth. He gave up a leadoff single to Garcia (his third hit tonight), but picked him off — the second Brewer pickoff of the game! A pitch later, Witt grounded out to third, and after a bit of a battle, Pasquantino popped out to end the inning. Morgan, in his third inning of work, cleanly retired the bottom of the order, and the game was over.
Henderson, Sproat, and Koenig all struggled to varying degrees tonight. Hall wasn’t perfect, but he at least managed to put up a couple of zeroes, something no other Brewer pitcher accomplished tonight. The offense was only able to muster five hits on the evening, with the only extra-base hits being the triple and double that Turang and Mitchell hit back-to-back in the third.
The Brewers and Royals will decide this series tomorrow afternoon. That’s a 1:10 p.m. start and will feature a lefty pitching matchup of Milwaukee’s Kyle Harrison and Kansas City’s Kris Bubic.