The offense shows signs of life, but Washington bangs out 19 hits
The Brewers’ offense showed signs of life on Friday night, but the Nationals tallied 19 hits to extend Milwaukee’s losing streak to seven games with an 11-5 defeat.
Aaron Ashby was unable to repeat the success of his last three starts, coughing up six runs in 4 2⁄3 innings.
Maikel Franco took him deep in the bottom of the fourth, but it was otherwise death by a million paper cuts for Ashby, who allowed 13 hits.
The southpaw encountered some tough luck on batted balls, with much of the damage coming on soft singles that found holes. However, he also left too many balls over the plate when ahead in the count, allowing seven of his hits with two strikes.
As Craig Counsell went to the mound to pull Ashby, he said something to home plate umpire Ramon De Jesus that resulted in an ejection. Counsell’s frustration stemmed from a call earlier in the game in which Victor Robles appeared to touch a live ball with his bat but was not called out.
Counsell was upset with HP ump Ramon De Jesus for not seeing Victor Robles touching a live ball with his bat, which would have made him out.
“Ramon said it didn’t happen. I think it did happen,” he said. “The fact that they didn’t see it was wrong in my opinion.”
— Todd Rosiak (@Todd_Rosiak) June 11, 2022
Miguel Sanchez was first on in relief. While he stranded a couple of Ashby’s runners in the fifth, he allowed four runs of his own in the sixth on back-to-back home runs by Josh Bell and Keibert Ruiz.
Brent Suter got the seventh, and he was the only Brewer who did not allow any hits or runs. He struck out two in a scoreless inning.
Luke Barker finished things off, allowing Washington’s 11th and final run on a home run by Nelson Cruz.
The Brewers showed some signs of life offensively, twice coming back from deficits early in the game.
In the second inning, Jace Peterson blasted a two-run home to the second deck in right field to give Milwaukee a 2-1 lead. He followed that up with a game-tying sacrifice fly in the third to make it a 3-3 game.
The Brewers would tack on two more runs in the eighth on a Rowdy Tellez sac fly and an Andrew McCutchen base hit. Five runs scored represented the team’s highest total since their last win, a 5-4 victory over the Padres on June 2.
McCutchen led the team with three hits, and Christian Yelich also had a multi-hit performance.
The Brewers are hoping that a favorable pitching matchup will help them avoid their first eight-game losing streak since 2015. Eric Lauer takes the mound looking to continue his breakout season. His mound opponent will be Patrick Corbin, who owns a 6.71 ERA this season and a 5.74 ERA since the start of 2020.
First pitch is at 3:05 p.m. CDT.