Offense goes silently most of the afternoon
Milwaukee unable to maintain momentum from big weekend
After pulling off a stirring three-game sweep in Cincinnati over the weekend to build a big lead in the National League Central Division race, the Milwaukee Brewers returned home Tuesday afternoon and fell flat on their faces against the last-place Kansas City Royals.
The Brewers scored two runs in the second inning to take a one-run lead but went quietly the rest of the day and fell to the Royals, 5-2, at American Family Field in an interleague game moved up four hours to accommodate Game 6 of the NBA Finals at Fiserv Forum.
The Royals entered the game riding a 13-inning scoreless streak and were 15-31 on the road, but none of that mattered as they boosted their record to 3-0 against the Brewers this season. It was the fourth consecutive home loss for Milwaukee.
“You have to give them credit; they had good atbats,” said Brewers starter Brett Anderson, who allowed three hits and two runs over five innings. “You can’t take any team lightly, regardless of their record.
“They’re still major league-caliber players and their lineup is pretty right-handed heavy, especially in the middle of the order.”
Making his first start in 13 days, Anderson found immediate trouble in the first inning. Whit Merrifield led off with a single up the middle, moved to second on a balk and then to third on a single to right by Carlos Santana.
Anderson struck out Salvador Perez but Andrew
Benintendi delivered a sacrifice fly to deep center. Hunter Dozier followed with a walk but Anderson prevented the inning from getting out of hand by retiring Jorge Soler on a fly to left.
Royals lefty Mike Minor cruised through a 1-2-3 first inning but was not as fortunate in the second. Avisaíl García legged out an infield hit to deep short, Tyrone Taylor followed with a walk and Luis Urías reached to load the bases on an error by third baseman Dozier.
Minor retired Keston Hiura on a fly to shallow center, with the runners holding, but Manny Piña – in a horrible 3for-57 drought – ripped a single to left to score two runners and put the Brewers on top, 2-1. Anderson bunted the runners up but Minor stopped it there by getting Kolten Wong to ground out to second.
“We had a great opportunity in the second,” Brewers manager Craig Counsell said. “We ended up getting two runs there. Other than that, there wasn’t much happening against him. Nothing of significance, multiple guys on, things like that.
“We probably made some innings too easy on him, frankly. We really had two innings (in the entire game) where we had good scoring opportunities. That’s probably not enough. We capitalized on one a little bit. Bases loaded, no outs. If Keston is able to keep the line moving there with something good, that could be a real big inning.”
Anderson got his sinker going in the third inning, putting down the side on three grounders. The first two hitters in the fourth also grounded out but the third one did not. Soler jumped on a first-pitch slider and knocked it out to center for his eighth homer, tying the game, 2-2.
“It was a long layoff, but also on pseudo-short rest kind of, because I threw 70 pitches on Friday (in a bullpen session) because that was going to be my start day to get me to tomorrow (before being moved up a day).
“My body felt good, my arm felt good. Just a little out of sorts there in the first and one bad pitch to Soler. I gave us a chance to stay in the ballgame. Unfortunately we didn’t come out on top.”
Minor pitched through the middle innings with minor difficulties. García doubled to left with two down in the third but Taylor went down swinging. Pinch-hitter Rowdy Tellez led off the Brewers fifth with an infield hit and moved up on a groundout but Willy Adames fouled out and Christian Yelich flied out to left.
García collected his third hit with a leadoff single in the sixth and appeared to have stolen second base with two down. The Royals asked for a video review, however, and it showed that García’s foot lost contact with the bag ever so slightly as he popped out of his slide, and Merrifield kept the tag on him and was rewarded for doing so with an out call.
Right-hander Hunter Strickland took over for Anderson in the sixth and pitched a scoreless frame but finally gave up his first runs since joining the Brewers in mid-June in the seventh. Michael A. Taylor led off with a slow chopper down the third-base line that Urías let go by, thinking it would be foul, but it crossed over the bag for an infield hit.
With one down, Ryan O’Hearn batted for Minor and blasted a 2-1 fastball from Strickland out to center for a tworun homer that put the Royals on top to stay, 4-2.
The Brewers had a chance to jump right back in it in the bottom of the inning against reliever Jake Brentz, thanks to a series of bloop hits. Hiura and Piña each dunked one in, and after Jackie Bradley Jr. fouled out, Wong dropped a hit into shallow center to load the bases.
With Adames coming up, the lefthanded Brentz yielded to right-hander Kyle Zimmer. Adames went after his first pitch and grounded sharply to shortstop Nicky Lopez, who started a rally-killing double play, and that would be it for the Brewers.