Game Thread #53: Milwaukee Brewers (25-27) @ Pittsburgh Pirates (18-34)

Brewers look to bounce back after last night’s heartbreaker

Last night’s Brewers game was frustrating, if only because the Brewers looked to be in position to still scrape out a win despite not playing their best baseball at times. You can find Paul’s full recap of last night’s game here.

Today’s matchup, the third in a four-game set, pits Pittsburgh’s Mitch Keller against Milwaukee’s Quinn Priester. Keller takes a 3.88 ERA into today’s game. His last outing was pretty representative of how the season’s gone for Keller — six strong innings, one earned run, and the loss. Still, Keller is just 1-6 through 10 starts this season.

Priester sports somewhat respectable — if not impressive — numbers this season (4.66 ERA, 1.47 WHIP). It’s been a tale of two Priesters since the Brewers acquired him from the Boston Red Sox. The righty has sandwiched two pretty bad outings in between six strong starts. He’s had six games with three or fewer earned runs allowed (five with two or fewer allowed), but has allowed an average of six runs (in less than five innings) in his other two outings.

Priester has now allowed just five total runs in his last three starts, which should bode well for today’s game.

As for the lineup, Pat Murphy is sticking with yesterday’s configuration. The one exception is in the nine slot, with Joey Ortiz at shortstop in place of Andruw Monasterio. Ortiz hit his second home run of the season in his last start, the first game of the Pirates series. He’s been seeing the ball a little better as of late, although it hasn’t always translated to the box score.

Jackson Chourio now has two hits in each of his last three games. More importantly, he’s walked three (!!) times in the last four games, bringing his season walk total to a whopping seven. He’s followed by William Contreras, who hit what would have been the game-winning home run last night had Oneil Cruz not homered in the bottom of the ninth.

Christian Yelich, who’d previously been pretty abysmal in the month of May, now has two hits in each game this series. His hard-hit and launch angle stats are down from where they’ve been in his career as a Brewer, but he’s been driving the ball against the Pirates. Yelich famously starts slow, so hopefully the best is yet to come.

Rhys Hoskins went 2-for-3 with a walk and an RBI yesterday. Hoskins has been the Brewers’ best hitter thus far this season, hitting .299 with a .891 OPS.

First pitch is slated for 3:05 p.m. on FanDuel Sports Wisconsin and the Brewers Radio Network. Full lineups for both teams are below: