Stellar August ends on high note
Another road victory leads to 10-game edge
SAN FRANCISCO – The Milwaukee Brewers capped a stellar August with what they do best – winning on the road.
The Brewers toppled the team with the best record in the National League, the San Francisco Giants, for the second game in a row Tuesday night, building an early six-run lead and coming away with a 6-2 victory at Oracle Park.
By completing the month with 19 victories, third-most in August in franchise history, the first-place Brewers moved 10 games ahead of the Cincinnati Reds, who were rained out. The only other season the Brewers held a double-digit lead in their division was 2011, when they were up by 101⁄2 games over St. Louis as late as Sept. 5.
The triumph gave the Brewers a 4523 record away from home, leaving them two wins shy of tying the franchise record for road wins in a season (47-33 in 1982).
“We can't get complacent; that's what that means,” said winning pitcher Brandon Woodruff. “We have to keep plugging along. We have to keep playing good baseball. If we think we've got it now, that's not a good mind set.
“Don't get me wrong. It's nice to have a 10-game lead going into the last month of the season. But I think our mind set right now is showing up every day and trying to win a baseball game. That's the most important thing.”
Woodruff turned in another strong outing , limiting the Giants to five hits and one run over six innings. In boosting his record to 9-7 with a 2.35 earned run average, Woodruff issued three walks and struck out eight.
Early in the season, Woodruff didn't always get great run support, but having a 6-0 lead in the fourth inning allowed him to settle in and keep pounding the strike zone.
“That's the whole name of the game,” Woodruff said. “Get ahead (in the count) and get to your spots. Just try to induce some weak contact. I was able to work out of a couple jams there. We had a good game plan coming in with (catcher) Omar (Narváez) and was able to execute it for the most part.
“To be able to come in here and win the first two is huge against essentially the best team in baseball. So, two great team wins. That's awesome.”
The Brewers wasted no time jumping on Giants starter Johnny Cueto, who was pushed back a day after being placed on the COVID-19 injured list while not feeling well (he did not test positive). And they did it with some well-placed, soft contact.
With one down in the first, Willy Adames dumped a pop fly into shallow left for a base hit and Christian Yelich hit a tapper just inside of third base for another single. Narváez became the first hitter to strike the ball hard, smacking an RBI single to right.
Yelich went to third on that hit and scored when Avisaíl García hit a slow roller to third baseman Kris Bryant.
There was nothing soft about Lorenzo Cain's hit to open the Brewers' second inning. Jumping on a 0-1 changeup from Cueto, he knocked it out to left field for his sixth homer of the season and a 3-0 lead.
Cueto retired the first two batters in the third but found trouble after hitting García on the left elbow with a pitch. Rowdy Tellez followed with a booming triple off the wall in left-center, García easily scoring as the ball caromed away from centerfielder Mike Yastrzemski.
After Jace Peterson drew a walk, Cain punched a grounder through the right side for a run-scoring single that put the Brewers up, 5-0.
“Sometimes, you just have to go out there and grind out at-bats and find ways to put the ball in play consistently,” Cain said. “We all did it in a bunch of different ways tonight and scored six runs, and that was enough tonight.”
With two down in the Brewers' fourth, Yelich singled to center and raced all the way around from first to score when Narváez's pop fly to shallow left eluded charging Alex Dickerson for a base hit. Cueto threw wildly to first base on the play, trying to catch Narváez rounding the bag too far but instead letting him move up.
Cueto exited after allowing his 10th hit of the game, to García, yielding to newly acquired lefty José Quintana, the former Brewers killer with the Cubs. Quintana had a 6.75 ERA before being dumped by the Los Angeles Angels but just seeing Milwaukee uniforms again perked him up, resulting in 3 innings of one-hit ball.
“We did a nice job against Cueto,” manager Craig Counsell said. “There was just pressure and he never got settled in, I think, at any point in the game. He never got rhythm going.
“I felt like we made a whole lot of his pitches uncomfortable. And that's hard to do. We did a nice job against him.”
Meanwhile, Woodruff was breezing through the Giants' lineup in the early going. Lamonte Wade Jr. led off the bottom of the first with a double but San Francisco did not collect another hit until Quintana bounced an opposite-field single to right with one on and two down in the fifth.
The Giants finally got on the board when Brandon Belt led off the bottom of the sixth with a home run to center — his fifth blast in five games against the Brewers this season. Woodruff had more work to do after Bryant and Yastrzemski collected two-out singles but he stopped it there by getting Wilmer Flores to bounce out to short.
“The four-seam (fastball) has been a difference maker for me in these last two outings since (a tough outing in) St. Louis,” Woodruff said. “Belt hit the one mistake; that's what he's supposed to do. When I was able to get to my spots, generally good things happen.”