Brewers bats struggle; lose series to Pittsburgh
Milwaukee, W.I. ~ After the Brewers offense struggled mightily Saturday night, they showed up too late Sunday, as they fell to their N.L. Central foes, the Pittsburgh Pirates. The Brewers failed to pick up some much needed ground Sunday, as the Chicago Cubs also lost. The Brew Crew remains 2.5 games behid the Cubs.
A sixteen inning scoreless streak between the first inning on Saturday and the ninth on Sunday was too much for the Brewers to overcome as they saw their seven series win streak come to and end. Trailing 3-0 in the ninth, Jesus Aguilar and Domingo Santana hit back to back homers to make the deficit one. However, Pirates closer Felipe Vasquez recovered and retired the three next Milwaukee hitters in order.
The Brewers offense has consistently struggled against Pittsburgh pitching this season, but Trevor Williams was very, very good Sunday afternoon. With a 1.21 second half ERA entering the contest, Williams mowed down Brewers hitters, constantly forcing them to make defensive swings, which resulted in ground balls and pop ups. Williams finished with seven strikeouts over the six innings he pitched.
After Williams left Richard Rodriguez pitched the seventh, while Kyle Crick came on for the eighth. Both pitched scoreless innings. Going into the ninth inning Milwaukee only had three hits, two of which were off the bat of Erik Kratz.
Jhoulys Chacin got the ball for the Brew Crew and pitched five very good innings on three hits and two runs. The two runs he allowed came on a sacrifice fly and a single. Both runs scored with a bit of luckiness go to the Pirates way. In the second inning, Corey Dickerson doubled just off the end of Christian Yelich’s glove. Two batters later, Dickerson scored on a sac fly by Kevin Newmann. The second run the Pirates scored came on a low cutoff throw to Kratz the snook past him to allow Josh Bell to score.
The Brewers loss just added to the rough weekend for sports fans from Wisconsin. The Brew Crew looks to brighten spirits this week when the Cincinnati Reds roll into Milwaukee for a three game series at Miller Park.
Jacob Szczap