Brewers lose heartbreaker in extra innings

A blown comeback leads to a tough loss

Box Score

This game was billed as a matchup of aces, with two of the better pitchers in the National League taking the hill tonight as the Brewers’ Freddy Peralta started against the Pirates’ Paul Skenes. The Pittsburgh ace was indeed on point, but it was a struggle for Peralta, who showed the frustrating inability to put batters away that has plagued him regularly. Still, Milwaukee managed to keep the Pirates to two runs through the first eight innings, managed to get to Skenes, and did some damage against the Pittsburgh bullpen. But Milwaukee’s bullpen, in a rough spot after a series of taxing games, was unable to hold the lead and gave this one away late.

The Brewers made Skenes work in the first inning. Jackson Chourio got a one-out bloop single, and after William Contreras flew out in foul territory, Christian Yelich, with a really nice approach, dumped a single into left for the Brewers’ second hit of the inning. But Rhys Hoskins struck out, and the inning ended, though Skenes’ 23 pitches in the first inning were a small victory in and of themselves.

Peralta, meanwhile, came out looking like the Freddy Peralta who has sometimes frustrated fans over the past few seasons. With one out, Peralta had a pretty uncompetitive five-pitch walk to Andrew McCutchen, and while he did get the next two batters, it took him 12 more pitches to do it. The second inning was even more of a struggle for Peralta: he kept Pittsburgh off the board, but he gave up a couple of hits and needed a ton of pitches to get through the inning, finally getting the last out on a strikeout of Henry Davis on the 11th pitch of the at-bat.

Skenes, meanwhile, locked in. He went three-up, three-down in both the second and third innings with strikeouts of Sal Frelick, Jake Bauers, and Jackson Chourio. Brice Turang did make solid contact in the third, but lined out to right field.

In the bottom of the third, the Pirates struck first when Oneil Cruz, who hit the ball hard in his first at-bat, absolutely crushed a 94-mph 3-1 middle-in fastball. This was one of those Cruz bombs that very, very few other players on Earth can hit, a 117.9-mph shot 442 feet to right-center field. Peralta got the next three batters, but Pittsburgh had a 1-0 lead.

The Brewers again failed to score on Skenes in the fourth, but they did make him throw some more pitches. Contreras and Yelich both struck out to get the inning started, but Hoskins drew a seven-pitch walk, and while Frelick grounded out to end the inning, it took Skenes eight pitches to make him do so. Through four innings, Skenes had thrown 73 pitches, good news for a Brewers team whose best chance to score in this game was probably against someone else.

Peralta was also struggling with efficiency. He struck out Alexander Canario to start the fourth, got Ke’Bryan Hayes to ground out to shortstop, and he got the third out despite giving up a hit when Adam Frazier — who singled in the second — hit one over the head of Caleb Durbin at third but tried, unwisely, to stretch his hit into a double. Bauers made a really nice throw, and Frazier was out at second by a mile. Despite the relatively quick inning, Peralta had thrown even more pitches than Skenes (76) through four innings, with a tired bullpen waiting behind him.

Bauers hit one a long way in the top of the fifth, but he hit it to the wrong spot in dead center, and Cruz eased back and made the catch on the warning track, 382 feet away. That followed a Durbin groundout and was followed by an Andruw Monasterio groundout, and Skenes needed only nine pitches to extend his shutout through five innings.

Isiah Kiner-Falefa led off the bottom of the fifth with his second hit of the game. The inefficiency reared its head again when Peralta got ahead of Davis 0-2 but Davis worked it back full and fouled off a pitch before appearing to flyout to center field; but Davis, it turned out, clipped Contreras’s glove, catcher’s interference was called, and two runners were on for Cruz, who had been seeing Peralta well in both of his previous at-bats. Catcher’s interference is never good, but this one had the potential to be especially back-breaking.

Peralta did strike out Cruz, but he walked McCutchen on four pitches; perhaps Peralta was confusing 2025 McCutchen with 2012 McCutchen, but Cutch had two walks off of Peralta, which he didn’t even have to think about. That loaded the bases with one out for Reynolds, who Peralta walked, scoring a second run. Peralta also crossed the 100-pitch threshold with that at-bat, and Pat Murphy had seen enough: Peralta was pulled in favor of Grant Anderson with the bases still loaded and only one out. Tasked with keeping the Brewers in the game, Anderson struck out Spencer Horwitz and Canario and saved Peralta’s ERA and the Brewers’ chances in this game.

Milwaukee had the top of their order up against Skenes in the sixth, with the presumed goal surely just to get his pitch count up near 100 (with any runs scored as bonuses). Turang flew out to start the inning, but Chourio drew a walk — his second in two days! Contreras struck out looking, and Yelich (perhaps unwisely) swung at the first pitch but managed to sneak a single through the infield to put runners on first and third with two outs.

Then, as we have seen many times this season, Hoskins came through: he hit an RBI single to center, one that just bounced in front of Cruz’s glove on a dive. After a bad throw to the infield as Yelich went first to third, Hoskins ended up at second, and Frelick had a golden opportunity with two outs. He grounded out to second, but the Brewers had halved the Pirates’ lead and, more importantly, Skenes’ last pitch of the inning was his 100th.

Anderson was back for the sixth, and he worked around a one-out walk to keep the score at 2-1 heading to the seventh. Skenes was replaced in the top of the seventh, and he was excellent: in six innings, he allowed four hits, two walks, and one run while striking out eight. The replacement was right-hander Tanner Rainey, who got Durbin on a weak groundout, and should have gotten Bauers on a strikeout looking — even Bauers thought he was out, on a pitch that was probably a strike by 4-5 inches — but Bauers took advantage of the extra life and drew a walk. Monasterio followed with his first hit of the season, and Bauers aggressively went first-to-third to put Milwaukee in a great position to tie the game.

Tie it, they did. Turang fell behind but worked back even and lined a solid single to center field to tie the game at two, and Rainey was removed for Dennis Santana, who had to come in with runners still at the corners and still only one out. Chourio lined one into left field that, in a way that was almost identical to Hoskins’ RBI single in front of Cruz in the sixth, dropped just in front of a sliding Canario’s glove. That scored Monasterio and gave the Brewers a 3-2 lead. Santana did strike out Contreras and Yelich to get out of the inning, but the Brewers had flipped this one.

That lead didn’t last long, though: with one out in the bottom of the seventh, McCutchen lined a double down the left-field line, and he scored when the next batter, Reynolds, knocked an RBI single to right. Koenig recovered to get a strikeout of Horwitz and a groundout (helped by a nice play from Turang) of Canario to end the inning with the score tied.

Pittsburgh sent Santana back to the mound to try to keep the game tied. Hoskins started the inning with another single, and he was replaced at first by pinch-runner Joey Ortiz. Frelick struck out, but Durbin came through with a line drive single down the right field line that got Ortiz to third with one out. Durbin’s hit chased Santana, who was replaced by lefty Caleb Ferguson, and Murphy let Bauers stay in to face him, rather than moving to the switch-hitter Isaac Collins. Bauers got three really good pitches to hit, fastballs down the middle on 2-0, 3-1, and 3-2, but fouled off the first two and struck out on the third. That meant things were up to Monasterio: he fell behind 0-2 but worked the count back full and eventually drew a walk on the seventh pitch of the sequence, loading the bases for Turang. Turang hit a fly ball down the left field line that Canario nearly whiffed on, but the catch was made, and the inning ended with the bases loaded and the score still tied.

Nick Mears was the chosen pitcher for the bottom of the eighth. Hayes hit a fairly deep fly ball on Mears’ first pitch, but Frelick caught it on the warning track. Frazier, with two hits already, saw nine pitches from Mears and had his third hit of the night on the last of those, giving Pittsburgh a one-out baserunner. Mears got the second out when Kiner-Falefa flew out to center, and he then faced a pinch hitter in Joey Bart. Bart fell behind 0-2, but Frazier was caught trying to steal second base, which ended the inning with Bart still standing at home.

Pirates closer David Bednar and his 5.02 ERA (and 0-4 record) entered in the top of the ninth with the 2-3-4 hitters of the Brewers due up. Chourio chased a high fastball for the first out, but Bednar left one too many fastballs over the plate to Contreras, and he blasted the seventh pitch of the at-bat out into the Brewer bullpen in center field. After Yelich followed with a walk, the boo birds got louder in the PNC Park stands, and after a walk — to Ortiz, of all people — Bednar was pulled from the game.

With runners on first and second and one out, Isaac Mattson came into the game and settled things down with a strikeout of Frelick and a pop-up from Durbin to end the inning.

Since Trevor Megill had pitched in four of five days, it was Abner Uribe in the ninth with a 4-3 lead to protect. Uribe got the first out, but Oneil Cruz was waiting for Uribe’s sinker, and on a 1-0 pitch, he hit his second monstrous home run of the game, this one 427 feet to right center. McCutchen followed with a single, giving him his second hit to go along with two walks, but Uribe got the next two batters to end the inning and send it to extras.

Ryan Borucki was the pitcher for Pittsburgh in the top of the 10th, and he made Bauers look pretty silly while striking him out on three pitches. Collins, who entered defensively in the bottom of the ninth, was the next batter, and he fell behind, but Durbin, the ghost runner, made a gutsy steal of third base that forced the infield in. That ended up mattering a lot, as Collins chopped one over the head of Hayes at third base for an RBI single. Collins, though, was thrown out trying to steal second base for the second out, and Turang flew out to end the inning.

Uribe stayed in to try yet again to win the game for the Brewers. But once again, Uribe was unable to do so when Canario led off with an RBI single. But, worse, Chourio bobbled it in center, allowing Canario to advance to second base as the winning run. Uribe got the first out without allowing the runner to advance when Hayes grounded out to third. Frazier, who was 3-for-3 with a walk, was intentionally walked in front of Kiner-Falefa; IKF came through with a base hit, but Frelick came up throwing, and Canario was thrown out at the plate. It wasn’t immediately clear if Canario was called out because he was tagged or because he left the base path, but in any case, he was out, and the Pirates were mad.

But … Uribe still needed to get one more out. The batter was Joey Bart, and Uribe got ahead 0-2, but that putaway pitch, the slider, got away from Uribe and past Contreras, and Frazier scored from third. It was an anticlimactic way for the Brewers to lose, though I’m sure it felt like poetic justice to the Pirates and their fans after the out at the plate just a few moments earlier.

To the casual fan, this was probably a pretty exciting game, but it was a tough loss for the Brewers, who battled through a shaky start from Peralta and managed to score on Skenes before chasing him after six, took two late leads, and couldn’t hold either of them. Their second attempt to get back to a .500 record this week failed in extra innings just like the first one, and they’ll have to get back to it tomorrow with a bullpen that was again forced to cover some high-stress innings.

Milwaukee got some nice offensive games from Chourio (2-for-4, a walk, a run, an RBI), Yelich (2-for-4, a walk), and Hoskins (2-for-3, an RBI, a walk). Anderson was the star of the pitching staff today, with the two strikeouts to get out of Peralta’s bases-loaded, one-out jam in the fifth and the additional scoreless frame in the sixth.

Back at it tomorrow, when these teams will play at 3:05 p.m., with Mitch Keller versus Quinn Priester.