Brewers hold on for tense 9-8 victory to sweep Twins

Offense keeps rolling early, Megill closes the door

Box Score

The Milwaukee Brewers’ offense continued rolling early today, and by the fifth inning of today’s game, they had a 9-3 lead and looked on their way to an easy, dominant sweep of the Minnesota Twins. But starter Quinn Priester and the Brewer bullpen didn’t have their best stuff today, and Minnesota had no desire to go down without a fight, as the Twins nearly came all the way back. But closer Trevor Megill, for the second time in four days, staved off a late comeback and shut the door.

It was the lefty Danny Coulombe who started today’s game for the Twins as an opener — it was just his second career start in the 35-year-old Coulombe’s 11-year career. Coulombe started things nicely for Minnesota by getting a groundout from Sal Frelick and a strikeout from Jackson Chourio, but Christian Yelich battled hard and ended a nine-pitch at-bat with a two-out double. William Contreras, really the only Brewer starter who has struggled over the past couple of games, followed with a base knock to center that scored Yelich from second, and the Brewers took an early lead. Isaac Collins started in an 0-1 hole when he was hit with a clock violation before a pitch was thrown, and he struck out (on two pitches!) to end the inning, but the Brewers led 1-0 before the Twins came to the plate.

Today, though, the Twins had an immediate answer, as Byron Buxton — the catalyst for this Twins offense — got a 3-2 sinker right down main street and blasted it to left to lead off with his 16th home run of the season. After Priester got his first out on a pop fly by Matt Wallner, Trevor Larnach also got a sinker that went right down the middle and knocked it for a single to center field. Ty France followed with another hit, though his wasn’t especially hard hit, and then Brooks Lee followed with another much cheaper hit — a check swing that was poked into a hole in the defensive shift on the left side. The Twins took a 2-1 lead, and pitching coach Chris Hook was out to talk with Priester, but the solid contact continued when Carlos Correa lined the fifth hit of the first inning to center field. It was hit hard enough that France had to hold at third, which gave Priester a chance to get out of the inning.

Priester’s first pitch to Kody Clemens was a near-disaster that Clemens lined hard, but he hit it right at Brice Turang for the second out. The next batter, Ryan Jeffers, hit a grounder to third, and Caleb Durbin fielded and stepped on the base for the final out. Priester allowed five hits, including a homer, in the first inning but had to feel a small victory in allowing only two runs.

Now behind for the first time in the series, Milwaukee came to bat against the scheduled starter David Festa, who took over for the opener Coulombe. They didn’t stay behind for long. Rhys Hoskins, leading off the inning, pulled a 3-1 fastball down the line and snuck it just inside the foul pole for a solo homer, his 12th of the season. Festa recovered and retired the next three in order, but the Brewers had tied it up heading to the bottom of the second.

Priester settled down in the second inning. He started with a strikeout of DaShawn Keirsey Jr., then got Buxton to ground out to shortstop on the first pitch he saw, and he struck out Wallner to end a 1-2-3 second inning.

Frelick reached to lead off the third on what was initially ruled an error on third baseman Brooks Lee (a surprising ruling that was changed to an infield hit a couple of innings later). Chourio followed with a beautiful drag bunt to about the same spot that Frelick’s went, and the Brewers had two on and nobody out. Yelich, then, bounced one hard into the ground that went over Lee’s head, and the Brewers regained their lead.

Chourio advanced to third on Yelich’s single, setting up runners on the corners with no outs. Contreras swung at the first pitch and popped out to the catcher, Jeffers, much to his frustration, but Collins loaded the bases by drawing a walk. The batter was Hoskins, who’d started Festa’s day with a homer — no home run this time, but Hoskins hit a sac fly to left that got Chourio home for the Brewers’ fourth run. Turang grounded out to end the inning, but the Brewers’ offense was still rolling.

Larnach led off the bottom of the third with his second single of the day. Priester got France with a strikeout and Lee on a fly ball to center field; with two outs, Correa lined one hard to shortstop that deflected off a jumping Ortiz’s glove and into the outfield for his second hit, but with runners on the corners and two out, Clemens also struck out, and the Brewers held their 4-2 lead.

Durbin started the fourth with another infield hit, one placed perfectly in the hole between third base. Ortiz then knocked an 0-2 pitch through the right side of the infield on an off-balance swing, Durbin ran to third, and Festa must have felt like he had the worst luck in the world. Frelick hit a fly ball to right that seemed like it should have been deep enough to score Durbin, but there was some sort of miscommunication between Durbin and third-base coach Jason Lane, and Durbin didn’t attempt to tag and score (which left Frelick looking annoyed). Milwaukee still had a good chance to score with only one out and Chourio up — he struck out, but with Yelich at the plate, a pitch got away from Jeffers and Durbin did score from third to plate that run that should have scored on Frelick’s fly ball. Yelich still had a chance with a runner in scoring position after the wild pitch, but he struck out to end the inning.

Jeffers got an 0-2 slider that didn’t slide and led off the fourth with a long homer that stayed just fair down the left field line, his sixth homer of the year. Keirsey Jr. grounded out to second for the first out, but a single by Buxton was enough for Pat Murphy, who opted to bring in Rob Zastryzny to face lefties Wallner and Larnach instead of letting them face Priester a third time. Wallner hit a pop-up that looked destined for the seats down the right field line, but the strong crosswind in Target Field pushed it back into play and Frelick made the catch for the second out. With Larnach up, Buxton tried to steal second; it was a close play, called an out on the field, but Minnesota challenged and it was overturned. It didn’t matter, though, as Zastryzny struck out Larnach and the inning ended with the score 5-3.

Contreras walked to lead off the fifth and was erased when Collins grounded into a fielder’s choice. With Collins on first and one out, Hoskins blasted a ball at Lee at third base that deflected off of him and got lodged under the padding in the wall, which was technically ruled as a ground-rule double. That put runners on second and third for Turang, but he didn’t need the runners to be in scoring position: he put a charge into one and hit a no-doubt homer to left, his fifth of the season and first in more than a month, and Milwaukee was up 8-3.

Durbin singled two pitches later, which led to a mound visit. Festa stayed out there as the sacrificial lamb, and he gave up singles to Ortiz, who lined a single to right on a pitch that was several inches above the zone, and Frelick, who knocked an RBI single up the middle. The inning mercifully ended when Chourio tapped one back to the mound that started a 1-4-3 double play, but Milwaukee was up 9-3 after four-and-a-half.

Grant Anderson replaced Zastryzny in the bottom of the fifth and worked around a one-out single. Festa reached the end of the line in the top of the sixth when, with two out,s he gave up a single to Collins and walked Hoskins, but Griffin Jax, summoned from the bullpen, retired Turang to end the inning.

Abner Uribe got some work in the bottom of the sixth gave up a two-out solo homer to Buxton, who had his second homer of the game, but that was all. Justin Topa replaced Jax in the top of the seventh and gave up a leadoff single to Durbin, but got a double play from Ortiz and got Frelick to pop out to shallow left, and the inning was over.

DL Hall replaced Uribe and had a little trouble: with one out, he walked France and gave up back-to-back singles to Lee and Correa, the second of which scored the Twins’ fifth run. After a mound visit, Jonah Bride — pinch hitting for Clemens — also walked, and with the bases loaded and one out, the Twins had the tying run at the plate, and Pat Murphy had to remove Hall from the game, with Nick Mears as the replacement.

Mears fell behind Jeffers 2-0 and 3-1, but worked it back full and got him to ground out weakly to second base. That scored a run to make it 9-6, but it was a big out, and Mears got pinch-hitter Harrison Bader to fly out to right (a catch that was made adventurous due to the wind) with runners on second and third to end the inning.

The Twins, perhaps sensing some momentum, went to their closer, Jhoan Duran, in the top of the eighth against the meat of the Brewers’ order. He got Chourio and Yelich without any trouble, but Contreras ripped a two-out double into the left field corner, giving him his second hit and third time on base in the game. That gave Collins a two-out RBI opportunity, and made Duran throw eight pitches but grounded out to end the inning.

With the lead down to three, the Brewers brought in Jared Koenig in the bottom of the eighth with Megill lined up for the ninth. Koenig struck out Buxton to start the inning, but Wallner reached when he hit a hard grounder to Hoskins at first that Hoskins couldn’t quite handle, initially — if he’d picked it cleanly, he would have easily beaten Wallner to the bag, but since he bobbled it, he needed to toss it to Koenig, who was late to the bag presumably because he thought Hoskins was going to take it himself. Koenig got the second out when Larnach popped out to shallow left, but after falling behind 0-2, France got the off-speed pitch he was looking for and hit a two-run homer to left, which cut the Brewer lead to one at 9-8.

Lee knocked a single into right with two outs and nobody on, but there wasn’t anyone ready in the bullpen, so after a visit from Hook, Koenig faced Correa with the tying run on first base. Correa kept it going for the Twins when he knocked a base hit up the middle on a 1-2 count, his fourth single of the game. Koenig was pulled after that in favor of Megill, who hadn’t gotten more than three outs for the Brewers since his last appearance of the 2024 season.

Megill started against Bride, and he went right after him, got ahead 0-2, and after a foul ball, struck him out looking to end the eighth inning with the tying run on third.

Brock Stewart was in for the Twins in the ninth to try to prevent the Brewers from widening Megill’s cushion. Hoskins struck out to start the inning, but Turang put a drop shot on the infield grass for a one-out hit. Durbin hit a grounder to short that wasn’t quite hit hard enough to be an inning-ending double play, and instead swapped places with Turang. With Ortiz up, Durbin stole second base, a call which stood on review. But one pitch later, Ortiz got a fastball down the middle he wasn’t expecting and struck out looking. Megill would have to do his thing with no room for error.

Jeffers looked overmatched but fouled off a few pitches before popping out to Durbin in foul territory. The next batter, Bader, nearly tied the game when he hit a 111-mph drive to left, but it was a little too flat to clear the wall and instead went into the wall for a double. The Brewers then decided they’d rather put Buxton on as the winning run rather than let him hit, so Wallner was up with runners on first and second and one out. Wallner got ahead 2-0 but popped out in the infield on the next pitch, and Megill was one out away. Larnach was next, and he fouled off the first pitch, missed a high fastball on the second pitch, and then stared at a 100-mph fastball right down the middle to end the game.

Megill fought his way through this one, a few days after gutting his way through a similarly anxiety-inducing save at Wrigley Field on Thursday. The offense had another excellent game, as they put up 17 hits and nine runs, their fourth straight game with at least eight runs scored. Frelick, Yelich, Contreras, Hoskins, Turang, Durbin, and Ortiz all had multiple hits (Durbin had three). Hoskins and Turang had today’s home runs, while Hoskins also added a double, as did Yelich and Contreras.

It was mostly a struggle today for the Brewer pitching staff, but they did what they needed to get through it on this hot, windy day. Priester had a forgettable afternoon, and the win (arbitrarily) went to Zastryzny, who retired both batters he faced in the fourth inning and was the only Brewer pitcher today who didn’t allow at least one hit. Anderson, Mears, and Megill also had scoreless outings (an inherited runner scored on Mears, but it was charged to Hall), with Megill having the impressive four-out save.

The Cubs and Cardinals both lost today, so it was a good day in division standings, too. The Brewers head back to Milwaukee tonight, where they’ll start a three-game series with the Pirates tomorrow before getting an off day on Thursday. Tomorrow’s game is at 6:40 p.m.