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Anderson, bullpen put together shutout
Chase Anderson set the tone, and the bullpen took it from there.
By the time all was said and done, the Milwaukee Brewers had posted their first shutout in 3 1/2 months as they blanked the Arizona Diamondbacks, 4-0, at Miller Park on Saturday night.
Anderson, who was coming off a nightmare 2 1/3-inning, nine-hit, 10-run outing at Washington last Sunday, was solid in his five-inning stint.
Junior Guerra, Matt Albers, Alex Claudio and Jay Jackson finished the game out, giving Milwaukee its fifth shutout of the season and first since
May 10 against the Chicago Cubs at Wrigley Field.
Eric Thames and Trent Grisham hit consecutive home runs to start the Brewers’ fourth, and a two-RBI single by Keston Hiura in the seventh provided some breathing room.
The Brewers put multiple baserunners on in the first and third innings but failed to take advantage either time.
In the third, Lorenzo Cain led off by reaching on an error and stole second only to be picked off with one out. Then, on cue, Christian Yelich doubled to right and Mike Moustakas reached on an infield single, but Hiura struck out to leave the Brewers with nothing.
They finally broke through in the fifth, when Thames homered to right-center and Grisham to right off Zac Gallen in a three-pitch span to make it a 2-0 game.
Anderson (6-3) allowed three hits and two walks but kept the Diamondbacks off the board in his five-inning, 87-pitch outing.
Two of the three hits he allowed were to Christian Walker, who broke up the Brewers’ budding no-hitter Friday with two outs in the seventh.
Guerra and Albers allowed one baserunner between them in the sixth and seventh.
In the bottom half of the seventh, Milwaukee loaded the bases on a pair of walks and the plunking of Yelich by Andrew Chafin. Then Hiura — who’d struck out in each of his first three at-bats — singled to center to score a pair and double the lead to 4-0.
Claudio and Jackson teamed up for a scoreless eighth, and Jackson tossed a 12-3 ninth to finish it out. Through the first two games of the series, Arizona has managed one run on six hits.
KEY TAKEAWAYS
Reinforcements coming: President of baseball operations David Stearns said that the Brewers will take full advantage when teams are allowed to expand their rosters beginning Sept. 1. There will be two waves of players, with a larger wave joining on or around Sept. 1 and a smaller group coming up after San Antonio’s season concludes.
“We like our depth,” he said. “We’re going to make use of that expanded roster. This is the last year we can do it because the rules change next year. Being able to load up on that depth, have guys we can fit inn various roles throughout the month — we think it’s very important.
“I would image we’ll have a similarly large September contingent to what we had last year. We’ll probably see a number of the names we’ve seen throughout the course of the year and probably a name or two that we haven’t seen.”
Along with the likely promotions of right-hander Jimmy Nelson and lefthander Brent Suter -- who’s in the final stages of his comeback from Tommy John surgery -- Stearns said third baseman Travis Shaw would also be returning to Milwaukee.
Get him up: Rest is always a good thing for Josh Hader, considering the way manager Craig Counsell likes to use him for multi-inning appearances. But is there such a thing as too much rest? The left-hander entered Saturday having pitched a total of 1 1/3 innings since Aug. 9 and not at all since last Saturday at Washington.
“We haven’t had him up in a pretty good stretch now,” Counsell said. “I think we’re getting there (where he needs to pitch). We’ll see how the game goes today. Today is one where we can be more aggressive in using him as far as expand the situations we’d use him in. If we get a great game kind of like last night, maybe we don’t use him. I think we’d expand the circumstances we’d use him.”
Hader was warming with the Brewers holding their two-run lead in the seventh. But after Hiura’s hit, he sat down in favor of Claudio.
Finally here: Cory Spangenberg, who made his Brewers debut Saturday, admitted it was tough waiting most of the season for his first callup. He was originally supposed to join the Brewers last Sunday in Washington, but because of the teams’ 14-inning game the decision was made to add extra pitching instead.
“I was in the hotel and everything and got the call late at night that they were sending me back down,” he said. “You can only hope that you’re going to be back soon, but you never know what’s going to happen. I’m just glad to be back.”
Short term, long term: The optioning of Ben Gamel to Class AAA San Antonio allowed the Brewers to add a more versatile player in Spangenberg in the short term. In the long term the move also works in the team’s favor in that because he will be recalled to the majors within 20 days, his one remaining minor-league option will remain intact for the 2020 season. That gives Milwaukee even more flexibility with Gamel moving forward.
“We’re losing Ben for 10 days. He’ll be back in 10 days,” Counsell said. “The other thing from Ben’s perspective is that we can give him a week to play every day. I think that makes him better suited to help us in September.”