Brewers overcome early deficit to defeat Cubs 8-4

We’d like to start this evening by acknowledging the loss of Chicago Cubs legend Ryne Sandberg, which was announced while these two teams were playing tonight. It’s a painful night for Cubs fans and baseball fans in general, and our best wishes go out to everyone who’s hurting tonight.

Box Score

When the Brewers and Cubs played at the beginning of May, the Cubs were clearly the better team as they easily won the first two games of the series before the Brewers avoided a sweep by salvaging the third game. Tonight, after a rocky start, the Brewers looked like they belonged.

These teams came into this game tied not just atop the NL Central but atop the entire National League. But what was billed as a huge pitching matchup between All-Stars Jacob Misiorowski and Matthew Boyd wasn’t much of a pitcher’s duel, Misiorowski barely escaped the first inning, and an early three-run deficit felt ominous. But Miz righted the ship, Boyd uncharacteristically struggled with command, and the Brewer offense turned this one into a fairly comfortable victory, which was improbably their biggest comeback victory of the season.

Michael Busch got things started by blooping a 101 mph fastball in front of Jackson Chourio—a ball that maybe could have been caught—for a leadoff single. Kyle Tucker was next, and he drew a walk, and Misiorowski faced an early jam. Miz maybe should have gotten Seiya Suzuki looking on an 0-2 slider that was judged to be just off the plate, which mattered—Suzuki saw a few more pitches before hitting a grounder off of Miz’s left leg, who then had a slight collision with Suzuki while chasing after the ball. Misiorowski was okay, but the bases were loaded with nobody out.

Pete Crow-Armstrong was the batter, and while he’s been a Brewer killer this season, Misiorowski took advantage of his enthusiasm and got him to swing first at a slider out of the zone and second at a high fastball. After a foul ball, PCA struck out on a changeup in the dirt, but it got past Contreras, and Busch scored easily from third. The infield came in runners on second and third for Carson Kelly, and Misiorowski struck him out on three fastballs; the two that Kelly looked at could probably have been balls, but given the Suzuki pitch, we’ll take it.

Ian Happ then hit a tapper in front of the mound that should have ended the inning, but Misiorowski made a terrible throw to first, and two additional runs scored for the Cubs, who somehow managed three runs without recording an RBI. Misiorowski walked Dansby Swanson on four pitches as the Brewer bullpen started stirring. Nico Hoerner fell behind but kept fouling pitches off and got Misiorowski’s pitch count all the way up to 40 before he finally struck out on a changeup.

It was a very bad first inning, with bad defense, bad umpiring, and bad luck.

Boyd came into the game third in the league in ERA, having allowed more than three earned runs just once all season. But all the time sitting on the bench in the top of the first seemed to have a detrimental effect on him: Sal Frelick walked on four pitches and Jackson Chourio (not exactly a walks machine) walked on five pitches, and the Brewers were in business as they looked for a response.

But the number three hitter in the Brewers lineup this evening is William Contreras, and William Contreras is not hitting like a number three hitter right now. He hit a ground ball to third baseman Matt Shaw, who stepped on the bag and turned an easy 5-3 double play, and Boyd was an out away from escaping unscathed after his leadoff walks. He got that third out when Shaw made a diving stop on a Yelich chopper to the left side that looked destined for left field, and the Brewers would go to the second inning down 3-0.

Misiorowski was, surprisingly, allowed to return to the mound in the top of the second. His velocity was down slightly—his first three pitches were fastballs at 97 and 98 and a slider at 94—but he started with a strikeout of Shaw on three pitches. Busch battled longer but also struck out after seven pitches, and Tucker flew out to Frelick in right, and while he was at 56 pitches through two innings, Miz had a 1-2-3 second.

Andrew Vaughn nearly had extra bases to start the second but he pulled a changeup about a foot wide of the foul line. He grounded out to short on the next pitch. Isaac Collins followed with a drive to deep center field, but Crow-Armstrong had no trouble catching it on the warning track, 395 feet from home plate. Boyd saw his life flash before his eyes when Brice Turang hit a screamer up the middle that just hit Boyd and ended up as a two-out single, and Caleb Durbin followed with a two-out walk. It was Boyd’s third walk, notable because he’d walked just three batters in his last five starts and hadn’t walked more than three in a start all season. But Joey Ortiz was unable to capitalize on a changeup right down the middle and popped out to shallow center field to end the inning.

One got the sense that the combination of the shambolic top of the first and the missed opportunities in their first two attempts at bat meant that it wasn’t the Brewers night. But there was still a lot of baseball to be played.

Misiorowski, after the rough start, had found his groove. After his 1-2-3 second inning, Miz got Suzuki on a pop out, struck out PCA again, and got Kelly on a weak fly ball to for a second straight three-up three-down inning, this time on just ten pitches.

Frelick greeted Boyd with a single through the right side to start the bottom of the third. Boyd responded with a strikeout of Chourio, but Contreras lined a single at 113 mph into left to put two on for Yelich. He came through. After getting ahead 3-1, Yelich hit a slider into the right field corner for a double that scored Frelick and put runners on second and third with just one out. Boyd fell behind Vaughn, too, and ultimately appeared to decide that walking him and loading the bases was a better option than throwing him something in the zone in a hitter’s count.

That gave Collins a chance with the bases loaded. Boyd, already with a season-high four walks, went to a full count against Collins. Boyd didn’t want to walk him, too, but he threw a fat fastball right down the middle, and Collins smacked it into right for a solid two-run single that tied the game. And the Brewers were still in business, as Vaughn reached third, with still just one out. Turang did what he needed to do—he hit a fly ball to center that was plenty deep to score Vaughn from third. Durbin popped out to end the inning, but a four-run Brewer third flipped the scoreboard and Misiorowski returned to the mound with a 4-3 lead.

Happ became Miz’s seventh strikeout victim to start the fourth and Swanson followed with a fly out to left. Hoerner hit a weak grounder to third and was initially called safe on a close play at first, but the Brewers called for a review and the call was overturned. Misiorowski barely made it out of the first inning, but he’d been unhittable since; going back to his strikeout of Hoerner to end the first inning, Miz had retired ten straight.

Boyd got the first two in the bottom of the fourth before walking Chourio with two outs. But Contreras popped out on the first pitch he got, and the fourth inning was over.

Misiorowski was done after four, and all things considered, he’d done a pretty incredible job recovering from a disastrous first innings. He finished the games with three runs (two earned) on three hits and two walks in four innings, but he got seven of his 12 outs via the strikeout and didn’t allow a baserunner after the first inning. He was replaced in the fifth by DL Hall, who started with a strikeout of Shaw. Busch ended the 11-batter out streak by lining a single to right, but Hall got the second out when Tucker popped out on the first pitch. Suzuki drew a five-pitch walk to give Crow-Armstrong a shot with two guys on, but he flew out to right for the third out.

With one out in the bottom of the fifth, the Brewers extended their lead. After Yelich started the inning with a ground out, Vaughn got a hold of one and drove it into the Brewer bullpen for a solo home run—his fourth homer as a Brewer in just 14 games after he hit five in 48 games with the White Sox. Collins was robbed of extra bases on the next pitch when Tucker made a leaping catch on a ball that looked over his head, and Boyd ended the inning on a Turang ground out, but the Brewers were up 5-3 through five.

Nick Mears, apparently okay after a small injury scare last week, replaced Hall in the top of the sixth and put the Cubs down in order with a Kelly fly out and strikeouts by Happ and Swanson.

After Ryan Pressly replaced Boyd, Tucker started the sixth with another robbery of extra bases on a Durbin fly ball down the right field line that Tucker had to run a long way to catch. Ortiz also flew out, but Frelick got a hold of a first-pitch fastball and knocked another solo homer out to right to double up on the Cubs at 6-3.

The Cubs came out looking to answer, though. Grant Anderson replaced Mears and gave up a single to Hoerner to start the seventh. Shaw struck out, but Anderson hit Busch with a pitch, and with two on and one out, Pat Murphy opted to bring in Jared Koenig to face the lefty Tucker. Tucker won that battle and knocked a grounder through the right side for an RBI single, but Busch tried to go first-to-third and was thrown out at third base by Chourio for the second out. Koenig still had to face the dangerous Suzuki with Tucker in scoring position (he advanced on the throw), but struck him out swinging on a 98 mph 3-2 fastball. The Brewers maintained a two-run lead, and they had an answer in store.

Chris Flexen replaced Pressly in the seventh, and Contreras greeted him with another hit, his second single of the day. Yelich followed by smashing a hanging curveball just over the wall in right center (it actually bounced twice on the top of the wall), his 20th of the season, and Milwaukee was up four. The Brewers didn’t get anything else other than a one-out single from Collins, but they were up 8-4 with their top two relievers lined up.

The first of those two relievers, Abner Uribe, entered in the eighth along with defensive replacement Blake Perkins, who replaced Collins and shifted Chourio to left field. Uribe started by getting PCA to ground out, then after he hit Kelly with a pitch, struck out Happ and got Swanson on a hard line drive that was right at Turang.

Flexen remained on the mound in the bottom of the eighth, and had a 1-2-3 inning, though not without excitement; Chourio was up third with his last shot at extending his hitting streak to 21 games, and he crushed a line drive at 107 mph to center field but the wrong guy was out there tonight, and what would’ve been a double yesterday was a surprisingly routine flyout tonight.

With a four-run lead and the 8-9-1 hitters in the Cubs lineup due up, Murphy sense and opportunity to get his closer an extra day of rest and, instead of Trevor Megill, opted for today’s fresh call-up, Craig Yoho, to try to finish the game in a somewhat surprising move. (It was also, improbably, Yoho’s American Family Field debut; his six appearances earlier this season all came on the road.) Yoho needed two pitches to get Hoerner to fly out harmlessly to right and three more to get Shaw to fly out to center. But Yoho walked both Busch and Tucker, and Murphy was forced to bring Megill into the game anyway with Suzuki coming up.

Megill slammed the door. He started Suzuki with a 101 mph fastball for a called strike, followed with a perfect curveball for another called strike, and finished him off with another 101 mph fastball that Suzuki swung through. A quick and tidy job.

Milwaukee had several major offensive contributors in tonight’s win. Frelick, Contreras, Yelich, and Collins all had multiple hits, and Yelich, Frelick, and Vaughn all homered. Yelich had the best stat line, as he went 2-for-4 with the homer, a double, and three RBI. Chourio’s hit streak finally ended after 20 games, but he walked twice and put a charge into a ball that was caught in his final at-bat. On the bump, Misiorowski was great if you ignore the first eight batters of the game, and the bullpen allowed just one run on three hits in five innings.

With the Blue Jays’ loss in Baltimore tonight, the Brewer win perched them back atop the majors with the league’s best record. Milwaukee will go for a series victory tomorrow night, when these teams play again at 6:40 p.m.

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Brewers overcome early deficit to defeat Cubs 8-4

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