Vaughn’s debut homer is the big hit in Brewers’ 9-1 romp over Dodgers

The Brewers chase All-Star Yoshinobu Yamamoto in the first inning

Box Score

The Brewers got one of their best wins of the season tonight in what was billed as a big-time pitching matchup between two National League All-Stars. But the Brewers jumped on the Dodgers’ Yoshinobu Yamamoto, who didn’t make it out of the first inning, and broke through with a two-out, two-strike, three-run homer by Andrew Vaughn in his very first at-bat as a Milwaukee Brewer. On the other side, Freddy Peralta lived up to the All-Star billing and tossed six scoreless innings against the powerful Dodgers lineup.

The World’s Biggest Baseball Star got things started off… by reaching on a weak grounder that went for an infield hit. (Christian Yelich sent that star, Shohei Ohtani, some good-natured ribbing from the dugout.) Mookie Betts followed by making good contact but flying out to right, and Peralta quickly worked out of the inning by inducing a 3-6-3 double play from Freddie Freeman, as first baseman Andrew Vaughn got in on his first action as a Brewer.

Sal Frelick gave Yamamoto a rude welcome to Milwaukee, as he lined Yoshi’s third pitch into the right field corner for an easy double. William Contreras followed with a walk, but Yamamoto got the first out when Jackson Chourio flew out to shallow right. Yelich got ahead 3-0, but Yamamoto worked back into the count before Yeli grounded out to third on a ball that wasn’t hit hard enough to attempt a double play. That set up a big moment for Vaughn’s first Brewer at-bat — runners on second and third with two outs — and Vaughn decided he’d make it a moment to remember. On a 2-2 pitch, Vaughn got a hanging sweeper, one that was maybe even above the zone, and he blasted it into the Brewer bullpen for a three-run shot.

Isaac Collins followed Vaughn’s homer with a single, and Turang saw seven pitches with a walk on the seventh, and Yamamoto had only two outs and was already up to 36 pitches. Caleb Durbin then hit a hard grounder to Betts at shortstop, but his throw to first was low, and Freeman was unable to pick it — a run scored on the throwing error, and Yamamoto had to keep going. As Yamamoto crossed the 40-pitch threshold with Andruw Monasterio at the plate, the Dodgers needed to get someone up in the bullpen, and with the runners going, Monasterio blooped a single in front of right fielder Andy Pages. That scored Turang, and Dave Roberts had to make the tough decision to take Yamamoto out before the first inning ended. Lefty Jack Dreyer replaced Yamamoto and got Frelick to pop out, but the Brewers were out to an early 5-0 lead.

The Brewers chasing Yamamoto in the first was remarkable. Yamamoto had allowed five runs in a start only twice all season, and in his last two starts, he’d allowed only one run on four hits and two walks in 12 innings while striking out 14 (though those games were, to be fair, against the Rockies and White Sox). Yamamoto’s short outing also puts more pressure on the already taxed Dodger bullpen right out of the gate in this three-game series.

Brandon Woodruff got a nice ovation in between the first and second innings after his gem on Sunday. Peralta induced a weak flyout from Will Smith to start the top of the second and followed with a strikeout of Pages. Michael Conforto hit a two-out double, but Hyeseong Kim flew out to Chourio in center, and Peralta had an all-important “shutdown inning.”

Contreras had a pesky at-bat to start the second inning — he fouled off five balls — but flew out on the 10th pitch. Chourio hit the first pitch he saw pretty hard, but hit it right at the newly-recalled James Outman in center field, and Yelich struck out, and Dreyer had a 1-2-3 second.

Peralta started the third by striking out Miguel Rojas on three pitches. With one out, Outman hit a fly ball to shallow left center, but Collins and Chourio couldn’t decide who was going to catch it, and while they avoided colliding, no one caught it. Outman ended up on second for the dangerous top of the Dodger order, but Peralta got Ohtani to fly out to shallow left, and on the first pitch he saw, Betts hit a hard grounder to third base for the third out.

Vaughn nearly ripped another extra-base hit when he hit a line drive just wide of the left-field line on a 2-1 pitch, but he popped out behind second base for the first out. (At this point, the broadcast noted that the last Brewer to homer in his first at-bat with the club was outfielder Gabe Gross in 2006. Incredible pull.) Collins got ahead 3-0, but Dreyer threw three straight strikes to get a strikeout for the second out, and Turang popped out to end the inning.

Peralta got ahead of Freeman, 0-2, but Freeman worked it back to 3-2 before Peralta struck him out with a curveball that caught him by surprise. Peralta got Smith looking, also on a 3-2 pitch. Pages also worked Peralta to a full count, but Peralta walked him, and he was still looking for his first 1-2-3 inning. Conforto was next up, and Peralta got ahead of him before Peralta again went to a full count, but Conforto also struck out, and while he needed 25 pitches, he’d struck out the side while allowing only the walk.

Lou Trivino entered in place of Dreyer in the bottom of the fourth. He got the first two, Durbin and Monasterio, with just four pitches. Frelick saw more pitches than those two did, but grounded out to first base to end a quick inning.

Peralta had his best inning in the fifth, when he found that elusive three-up, three-down inning and needed only 10 pitches to do it. He was through five scoreless and sitting at 73 pitches.

Trivino was done after one inning, replaced by Will Klein. He walked the leadoff man, Contreras, but Klein got the first two outs when Chourio popped out (another first-pitch out) and Yelich struck out. Vaughn drew a two-out walk to put two on for Collins, who reached on a ground ball that Betts knocked down on a dive but didn’t have a play on, though it did save a run. Turang had a bases-loaded opportunity, and he came through with a base hit to left that scored two. Collins appeared to be thrown out at third for the last out, but Milwaukee challenged, and the call was overturned, so Klein had to keep at it, and Durbin had a two-out run-scoring opportunity. Durbin hit a hot shot to the left side of the infield that looked destined for left field, but Rojas made a nice diving play and threw him out to end the inning. But Milwaukee had extended the lead to 7-0.

Ohtani struck out looking on a 3-2 pitch to start the inning — he thought it was inside, and it probably was, but hey, we’ll take it. Betts followed with a pop out, but the Dodgers got back-to-back two-out singles from Freeman and Smith to put runners on the corners with two outs for Pages. That second hit spurred a mound visit from Contreras and got Aaron Ashby working in the bullpen, but after the visit, Peralta cranked up his velocity, hit 99 twice in a row to get ahead 0-2, and got Pages on a comebacker to end the inning.

The last pitch of the top of the sixth was the 98th of the night for Peralta, which meant his night was over. Despite his occasional familiar struggles with putting batters away, he had an excellent night. His final line was six innings, five hits, one walk, seven strikeouts, and no runs.

Anthony Banda was on in the bottom of the sixth along with a couple of defensive replacements — Dalton Rushing entered for Freeman and Esteury Ruiz, who briefly played for the Brewers but was the piece that acquired William Contreras, entered for Pages in right. Banda had to battle against Contreras but got a 1-2-3 inning.

Ashby was indeed the choice for Milwaukee in the top of the seventh. He clipped Conforto with a breaking ball to start the inning, but got the next three — with a wild pitch that advanced Conforto to third in between — and the hit batter didn’t matter.

Julian Fernández replaced Banda in the bottom of the seventh. Chourio, again swinging at the first pitch, got jammed but hit a blooper into right field for a leadoff single, and Yelich followed with an opposite-field bomb into the Brewer bullpen to mkae it 9-0. Jake Bauers appeared next as a pinch-hitter for Vaughn, ending his memorable debut. Bauers grounded out back to Fernández, and Turang and Collins also grounded out, and Fernández was out of the inning.

Ashby continued in the top of the eighth. Ohtani snuck a single through the right side to lead things off, but Ashby got the first two when Betts flew out and Rushing struck out. But with two gone, the Dodgers put a little something together: Smith walked, and Ruiz hit a comebacker that hit Ashby on his bare left hand and deflected into right field. Ohtani scored, and Ashby had to prove to the coaches that he could keep going, but Ashby needed only one more pitch to end the inning on a Conforto groundout.

Fernández stayed in the game for the bottom of the eighth and got the first two, pinch-hitters Anthony Seigler and Monasterio. Frelick drew a two-out walk, but Contreras grounded out to second to end the inning. Easton McGee came on to finish the game for the Brewers, and he had a drama-free 1-2-3 ninth inning to close it out.

This one was effectively over when Andrew Vaughn connected for a two-strike, two-out, three-run homer in the first inning. The Brewers, for their part, did a nice job of jumping out early and continuing to add insurance runs — two in the fifth, two more in the seventh — but they didn’t need them, as Peralta was excellent tonight and the bullpen did its job.

In his debut, Vaughn was officially 1-for-2 with the three-run homer and a walk. All of the other Brewer starters had at least one hit in this one, save for Contreras (who walked twice) and Durbin, and the other big hits were Turang’s two-run, two-out single and Yelich’s two-run homer.

The series continues tomorrow with a much-ballyhooed matchup between the grizzled legend, Clayton Kershaw, who struck out his 3,000th career batter to end his last outing, and the relatively baby-faced Jacob Misiorowski, who has 21 career strikeouts. The game is at 6:40 p.m. on FanDuel Sports Network and nationwide on TBS.