Garrett Mitchell spent the night turning a tricky matchup into the kind of performance a club can build around.
The Brewers outfielder, who entered Wednesday with only 10 starts against left-handed pitching and a .547 OPS against lefties, got the nod against Reds southpaw Andrew Abbott and delivered the biggest game of his season in Milwaukee’s 4-2 win.
Milwaukee struck first in the opening inning, when William Contreras drove in a run with a groundout and Jake Bauers followed with a sacrifice fly. Mitchell then got involved with a single against Abbott in the first, setting the tone for what turned into a four-hit night.
The second big swing of the game came in the third, and it came with a dose of frustration. Mitchell lined a one-out double just inside the left field line, then later tried to score on a safety squeeze bunt from Cooper Pratt. Spencer Steer’s glove flip to Tyler Stephenson led to Mitchell being ruled out at the plate, and even after a lengthy review with multiple angles appearing to show him beating the tag, the call stood.
“No. Absolutely not.” Mitchell said.
Pat Murphy didn’t hide where he stood on it either.
“Our guy that does video, he’s the best there is and [Mitchell]‘s safe in his mind and he has a picture of him being safe…. There is a picture of him touching the plate.
We can see it from the angle we have, and I’m sure they have that angle.” Pat Murphy said.
The score stayed locked at 2-2 until the seventh, when Mitchell helped break it open. Andrew Vaughn started the rally with a two-out double to center that got past the diving Matt McLain.
Mitchell followed by driving a triple off the angled center-field wall, his fourth hit of the night, bringing Vaughn home with the go-ahead run. A few pitches later, Mitchell scored on a wild pitch, and this time there was no debate at the plate.
By the end of the night, Mitchell was 4-for-4 and just a cycle short. His average climbed from .251 to .264, and his OPS rose to exactly .800.
“Take any other player in baseball that’s been missing for four years, to have him play this way particularly tonight. The four at-bats, the baserunning, the whole thing, I mean, I didn’t think it could happen.
I didn’t expect anything close to this for this kid. I’m really happy for him.
He’s just played every day, done whatever, hitting against lefties tonight, that’s something that he’s just gotten better and better. I commend his teammates for welcoming him back and seeking to understand what he’s been through, watching us play for four years.
So it’s a great story” Murphy said.
Shane Drohan also gave Milwaukee a solid start, even with the unusual wrinkle of facing Cincinnati in back-to-back outings. He said the Brewers had made adjustments after his previous start.
“We worked on some stuff in the bullpen a couple days after the start in Cincinnati. Really just feeling out the direct line we wanted for the slider, it felt like in Cincinnati that was where I came up short, just not throwing good sliders late in counts.
So we worked on that in the bullpen the other day and threw it well tonight, but I think it still goes back to that fastball.” Drohan said.
Drohan worked 5.2 innings, allowed six hits and two runs, and struck out seven before handing things off to Aaron “The Vulture” Ashby. Ashby covered parts of three scoreless innings and was the pitcher of record when Mitchell put Milwaukee ahead in the seventh, which made him the winner and pushed him to a major league-leading 12th victory at 12-1.
Abner Uribe, who had been feeling under the weather and a little dehydrated, handled the eighth after the Brewers weren’t sure he’d be available. Trevor Megill finished it off in the ninth.
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