The Brewers spent most of Wednesday night trying to claw back from a first-inning crater, and by the time the dust settled, Seattle had handed Milwaukee a 7-5 loss to even the series.
Dustin May never found a rhythm. The Mariners opened the game with three straight batters reaching on a single, single and double, and two runs were in before May had really settled in. He briefly steadied himself by getting Julio Rodriguez and Josh Naylor to make outs, but the inning unraveled again when he issued walks to Cole Young and Cal Raleigh to load the bases for Taylor Ward, who drilled a two-run single.
William Contreras also burned through both of the Brewers’ ABS challenges on pitches that were not close to the strike zone, adding to a rough opening frame that stretched to 35 pitches for May.
“He’s trying to keep May from struggling. He’s trying to get him on track so I understand it, that you went out of the box to do that…but he was wrong on both and it didn’t seem like they were that close.”
Pat Murphy said. “So sometimes it’s harder than you think.
He’s been really good at it and there he wasn’t.”
Contreras is 7-for his last-21 on challenges from behind the plate, by the way.
The second inning didn’t offer any relief. Seattle again put the first three men on base, then added a Rodriguez sacrifice fly and a Naylor single to push the lead to 7-0 before Milwaukee came up for a second time. May was done after two innings, charged with seven hits and just two whiffs on 66 pitches.
Milwaukee finally cracked the scoreboard in the bottom of the second. Joey Ortiz sent a two-run homer over the left field fence, his seventh of the season, to cut into the early deficit.
The Brewers kept putting runners on base throughout the night, but the breakthrough they needed kept slipping away. Their best chance came in the sixth, when back-to-back walks by Contreras and Christian Yelich knocked Logan Gilbert out of the game.
Andrew Vaughn followed with a single to load the bases with nobody out, but Luis Lara struck out. Ortiz then brought home a run with a sacrifice fly, and Cooper Pratt, back from the IL, struck out to end the inning.
Milwaukee’s bullpen kept the game from getting out of hand after May’s exit. Grant Anderson, DL Hall, Bryse Wilson and Antonio Senzatela combined to shut out Seattle over the final seven innings, giving the Brewers room to keep pushing.
They made another run at it in the eighth against Seranthony Dominguez. Vaughn walked, Lara singled, and Ortiz came through again with his fourth RBI of the night on a single that scored Vaughn. With runners on the corners and nobody out, Pratt bounced into a 4-6-3 double play that still brought in a run and trimmed the margin to 7-5, but it also snuffed out the inning’s momentum.
“Yeah, (Pratt) didn’t have good at-bats. We’ve seen him have good at-bats in big situations, but he’s a young player, just like Lara in the bases loaded situation.
It’s really unfortunate.” Pat Murphy said.
“Those kids are 21, sometimes in this league, when you’re 21, you make those kinds of mistakes.”
Milwaukee went quietly in the ninth against Andres Munoz, ending the comeback bid.
The Brewers had their chances after digging the early hole, but the seven-run deficit by the second inning proved too much to overcome. The rubber match is set for Thursday afternoon, with Robert Gasser on the mound for the Crew.
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