MILWAUKEE - The Brewers lost more than a game Sunday. They also had to pull Garrett Mitchell from the lineup after his blood sugar spiked, a move manager Pat Murphy said was strictly precautionary in Milwaukee’s 4-3 loss to the Reds.
Murphy said the club is still trying to find the best way to manage the quick flip from night game to day game, something that came up again with Sunday’s 1:10 p.m. CT first pitch after Friday and Saturday night games at American Family Field.
“We took him out precautionary. He had high blood sugar.
It happens a lot of times from night game to day game,” Murphy said. “The trainers thought it would be best precautionary to take him out.
… We’re working on more and more solutions to that very problem of night game to day game.”
Mitchell, who went 0-for-2 with a walk before leaving, was not said to be dealing with an injury.
The center fielder has played with Type 1 diabetes since the third grade and wears an insulin pump during games. Milwaukee selected him 20th overall out of UCLA in the 2020 draft, and Mitchell told MLB.com that summer that he viewed the diagnosis as an advantage because he already knew what his body needed to play every day.
Jason Johnson was the first major leaguer to wear an insulin pump in a game, doing so in 2004. Ron Santo and Sam Fuld also played with T1D.
On the field, the Brewers had a chance to build on a weekend that already secured them a postseason berth Friday with a 20-0 win over Cincinnati. Mitchell even homered in the first inning of Saturday’s 13-9 win. But Sunday belonged to the Reds once Milwaukee’s bullpen had to carry the load behind Robert Gasser.
Gasser gave up one run on three hits over five innings, and Murphy was quick to praise the left-hander for holding down one of the league’s tougher lineups against left-handed pitching.
“He was great. Gary did a nice job with him,” Murphy said of Gasser and catcher Gary Sánchez.
“He continues to just, you know, those first 85 pitches, he’s really, really good, you know what I mean? So I thought he did a fabulous job against a team that’s been swinging it.
He deserves a lot of credit here keeping us in the game.”
The game turned after that. Eugenio Suárez cracked a three-run homer off Antonio Senzatela in the sixth, and Tyler Stephenson delivered the winning RBI in the eighth against Abner Uribe.
“Our bullpen let us down a little bit. Uribe wasn’t as sharp as normal.
Senza wasn’t his normal self,” Murphy said. “I thought Romero was really good.
DL Hall continues to make big pitches at big times. And Gasser was great.
Offensively, we were a little bit snakebitten. You know, the baseball gods got us a little bit with a couple of those plays.
But, yeah, that’s the way it goes.”
Milwaukee finished with six hits and went 0-for-7 with runners on base. Jake Bauers and Joey Ortiz each went deep, and William Contreras had the day off, though Murphy said he would have played him if necessary.
The Brewers are off Monday before opening a three-game series at Pittsburgh on Tuesday at 5:40 p.m. CT.
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