Brewers hold off Atlanta
MILWAUKEE — After Christian Yelich helped the Milwaukee Brewers take a big lead, Josh Hader preserved the win that nearly got away.
Hader struck out Ozzie Albies with two outs and the tying run on third base in the ninth inning to save a 5-4 victory over the Atlanta Braves on Wednesday.
“They put a nice comeback on him, had some good at-bats against him, but he finished it,” manager Craig Counsell said of Hader.
Yelich’s solo homer in the sixth inning was his third in four games and his 34th of the season, tying the Los Angeles Dodgers’ Cody Bellinger for the MLB lead. That made it 3-0, and RBI hits by Keston Hiura and Manny Pina in the inning extended the lead.
Pina hit a two-run homer in the second.
Down 5-0, the Braves rallied for two runs in the eighth on Josh Donaldson’s homer and two runs in the ninth on his single.
Atlanta pinch-hitters Charlie Culberson and Johan Camargo led off the ninth with singles. With two outs, Freddie Freeman struck out on a pitch in the dirt, but he reached first base after the ball got away from Pina, who committed an error with his throw to first.
Donaldson’s hit made it 5-4 before Hader struck out Albies to earn his 21st save this season.
Milwaukee starter Chase Anderson (5-2) gave up only one hit — a double to Brian McCann in the second — in 5 2/3 innings. He walked three batters and struck out three.
The 31-year-old right-hander was happy to have Yelich on his side against the National League East Division leaders, who lost two of three in Milwaukee for their first series loss since early June.
“He’s a decent player,” Anderson said of Yelich, joking. “When he goes into slumps, his slumps are hitting singles instead of homers or triples or doubles. So to have a guy that’s on your team to impact the game on a daily basis the way he does, it’s huge.”
Atlanta starter Dallas Keuchel allowed five runs (four earned) in 5 2/3 innings. After giving up the home run to Pina, Keuchel (3-3) retired 11 of the next 13 batters he faced, but the Brewers got to him in the sixth, gaining their biggest lead before he was pulled.
“I was kind of teetering on the edge there for a while and was fortunate to get to the sixth,” Keuchel said. “I felt like I didn’t have too good of command of my fastball. I was behind on a lot of guys after the third and just couldn’t corral it together there in the sixth. I just kind of ran out of gas and turned a close game into an extended vacation.”
Atlanta’s Ronald Acuna Jr. reached base on a walk in the third inning, extending his career-best on-base streak to 23 consecutive games, the longest current run in the majors. He then stole his 17th base of the season, after a review overturned an out call, exceeding his total of 16 as a rookie in 2018.
Milwaukee rookie Hiura went 8-for-11 in the three-game series, including two doubles in the finale.