Yelich, Contreras homer as Brewers top Rays 4-2

No offensive explosion, but encouraging signs

Box Score

After two demoralizing losses in which the Brewers looked utterly helpless offensively, they did what they needed to do to pick up a win on Sunday. After a 40-minute rain delay, neither starter (Chad Patrick for Milwaukee and former Brewer Drew Rasmussen for the Rays) looked particularly sharp, but neither of these offenses is punishing mistakes the way they should be at the moment, and this remained a low-scoring affair until late. But when it was over, the Brewers finally got some offensive punch from their two most important hitters, and for the first time all season, they got a win in a game in which they didn’t score first.

For anyone hoping the Brewers would start this one with a little more offensive urgency, they would be disappointed, as their first five batters were all retired on weak ground balls, and the sixth struck out.

Tampa Bay, meanwhile, got a spark from the very start, in the form of Chandler Simpson, arguably the majors’ fastest player. Simpson knocked what would have been a single for most into center field to start the Rays’ offensive afternoon, but utilized that speed to turn it into a hustle double. After a strikeout and a groundout from Brandon Lowe and Yandy Díaz, Patrick had a way out of it, but Jonathan Aranda came up with a big two-out RBI knock and the Rays took an early lead.

After Patrick bounced back and retired the side in order in the bottom of the second, Jake Bauers got things started for the Brewer offense with a leadoff single in the top of the third. After a Joey Ortiz strikeout, Bauers stole second base (and likely cost Rasmussen a strike on a nice pitch at the bottom of the zone that the ump probably didn’t see as well because the catcher, Danny Jansen, had to leave his crouch), and he moved to third on a Caleb Durbin groundout. That gave Sal Frelick an opportunity with a runner on third and two outs, but he couldn’t come through — it was a frustrating at-bat, as he got ahead 3-1, watched a fastball down the middle, then swung at a fastball above the zone and popped out.

Patrick walked Jansen, the No. 9 hitter, on four pitches to start the bottom of the third, but it didn’t come back to bite him this time. Simpson and Lowe were retired on flyouts to center, and Díaz popped out in foul territory to end the third.

With one out in the top of the fourth, the Brewers got on the board when Christian Yelich, the home-run-per-fly-ball king, poked one to exactly the spot down the left field line. It was only 348 feet, but it went out to tie the game at one. William Contreras, who came next, also hit an opposite-field homer but of a very different sort: this one was 108 mph off the bat and was pretty comfortably a homer. That was all in the inning, but Patrick would return for the bottom of the fourth with a 2-1 lead.

A shutdown inning wasn’t in the cards, though. Aranda and Kameron Misner opened the inning with back-to-back singles, putting Aranda at third, and he scored on a José Caballero sacrifice fly to tie it back up at 2-2. A Travis Jankowski double put runners at second and third with one out and it felt like a big inning was in store for the Rays, but to Patrick’s credit, he calmed things down, struck out Taylor Walls, and got Jansen to fly out to left, and the inning ended with the score tied.

Bauers drew a walk to start the fifth, and Ortiz followed with a solidly struck single into right that got Bauers to third. Durbin followed with a weak groundout that scored Bauers and got Ortiz to second. Frelick and Chourio then both hit the ball well but into outs, despite xBAs of .570 and .580. That ended the inning, but the Brewers had retaken the lead.

Simpson, the spark plug, led off an inning with a double for the second time in the bottom of the fifth, and Patrick walked Lowe to put two runners on with no outs for the second straight inning. He faced one more hitter and got Díaz to fly out to shallow right, at which point Murphy decided to switch to lefty Tyler Alexander. Aranda flew out on Alexander’s first pitch, and then pinch-hitter Junior Caminero came in — in a “yikes emoji” moment, Caminero just missed a three-run homer to left, but Bauers caught it on the warning track. (This writer thought it was long gone off the bat, and Caminero did too, I think.)

Mason Montgomery replaced Rasmussen in the top of the sixth and started with a strikeout of Yelich. Contreras hit a hard groundout to third on the first pitch he saw, but Brice Turang drew a two-out walk and stole second base, his ninth of the season. Hoskins worked to a full count but struck out for the third time in the game to end the inning.

Alexander got to use his glove in the sixth: he retired Caballero on a soft liner back to the mound and made a more difficult play on a Jankowski dribbler in front of the plate. A first-pitch flyout to right field retired Walls, and Alexander had a clean inning.

Milwaukee got a little bit of a two-out rally in the top of the seventh, when Durbin walked and Frelick got a bunt single that chased Garrett Cleavinger before he could finish an inning. But Chourio grounded out on Manuel Rodríguez’s third pitch, a comebacker to the mound — a hard one, at 107.4 mph off the bat — and the threat passed.

Isaac Collins, who pinch-hit for Bauers in the top of the inning, took over in left field in the bottom of the seventh, and Milwaukee’s new pitcher was Abner Uribe. Jansen hit Uribe’s first pitch to the right spot between third base and shortstop and had a leadoff infield hit before getting replaced by pinch-runner Christopher Morel. Uribe then made some nice pitches and a really nice defensive play, when Simpson, who fought off several tough two-strike pitches, hit into a 1-6-3 double play. The good defense continued when Turang snagged a Lowe line drive with a leaping catch to end the inning. After seven, it remained Brewers 3, Rays 2.

Looking to add some insurance, Yelich led off the eighth with a base hit to center off of new pitcher Eric Orze, and with Contreras at the plate, he stole second base without much trouble. Contreras struck out and Turang popped out, and it looked like the good start to the inning might go for naught, but for the second time in this series, Hoskins came through with a clutch, late RBI single, and the Brewers expanded their lead.

To protect that lead, the Brewers turned to Joel Payamps — a move that I’m sure puzzled some fans, but he did come in having allowed just one run in his last eight appearances (though he did allow three hits and, somehow, no runs in one of those outings). Aranda did pick up a one-out single, his third hit of the game, but the next batter, Caminero, grounded into a 6-4-3 double play, and Payamps got the Brewers through the eighth.

Cole Sulser was tasked with keeping the Brewers’ lead at two in the top of the ninth, and he put them down in order. Trevor Megill, who threw just four pitches before allowing a walk-off single on Saturday, had better luck today: Caballero hit a soft liner to short, Jankowski, yesterday’s game winner, lined out to second base, and Walls struck out looking when he was fooled by a curveball.

I wouldn’t call it an offensive breakout, but the Brewers actually hit a couple of homers today, and while Chad Patrick (4 ¹⁄₃ innings, six hits, two walks, two runs, four strikeouts) was a little shaky, the Milwaukee bullpen pitched very well — between Tyler Alexander, Abner Uribe, Joel Payamps, and Trevor Megill, the Brewers allowed just two singles, no walks, and no runs in 4 ²⁄₃ innings. Offensively, Yelich was the leader, with two hits (a single and a homer), two runs scored, and a stolen base. Contreras added his fourth homer of the season, and his first homer (and extra-base hit of any kind) since April 13.

These two mid-market teams that are held up as the great models of low-income competitiveness looked very much alike this weekend, for better and for worse. Milwaukee continues this two-city trip tomorrow, when they take on their other American League doppelganger, the Cleveland Guardians, at 5:10 p.m. CT.