Davies makes most of his return with solid outing
With all that happened in the 3-hour, 13-minute classic between the Milwaukee Brewers and Chicago Cubs on Monday afternoon at Miller Park, it was easy to overlook the outing turned in by Zach Davies.
Starting in a major-league game for the first time since May 29, the righthander was spot-on for a team that will take all the strong starting pitching performances it can get as it makes its postseason push.
Davies pitched five innings of onerun ball, allowing four hits and a walk while striking out seven in a game won by the Brewers in walkoff fashion, 4-3.
“It’s definitely fun to be back,” said Davies. “It’s been a long three months. It’s been a little bit of adversity, but it’s a little bit of a learning curve for everybody who goes through that for the first time.
“But now I’m back and healthy and trying to help the team out as best I can.”
The adversity Davies mentioned was not one but two stints on the disabled list totaling 90 games caused first by a right shoulder injury and later a back issue that flared up as he was in the minor leagues on rehab assignment.
As a result, the 17-game winner in 2017 entered Monday with a 2-5 record and a 5.23 earned run average accrued over the eight starts he made earlier in the season.
He faced a 1-0 deficit just three batters into the game, although it wasn’t totally on him.
After Javier Báez singled with one out, Anthony Rizzo singled to center. Báez – one of the most aggressive and instinctive base runners in the game – was going hard from first to third when Lorenzo Cain lost his grip on the ball as he started to throw it in.
That was all Báez needed to turn on the jets and head for home, and he slid in to give Chicago the quick 1-0 lead and the heavily pro-Cubs crowd something to cheer about early on. Davies recovered to get Kris Bryant to fly out to center and strike out Kyle Schwarber.
“Being able to get out of it, just minimize the damage to that (was big),” said Davies. “They were ready and they were attacking me. I knew that pitches early in the count had to be a little bit better and not so much over the plate.
“So it kind of set my game plan the rest of the game.”
Davies tossed a 1-2-3 second inning, then worked around a two-on, two-out situation in the third by getting the dangerous Bryant to ground out to third.
He allowed just one hit – an Addison Russell single – in the fourth and fifth while striking out four of the final seven batters he faced to finish one punchout shy of tying his season high (which came against the Cubs on April 7).
Manager Craig Counsell said before the game there were no limitations on Davies despite his long absence from the rotation but also mentioned that with a much deeper bullpen courtesy of September roster expansion he’d have much more flexibility.
Thus, with Davies’ spot in the order coming up in the bottom of the fifth and a runner on first it was a no-brainer to lift him for pinch-hitter Domingo Santana.
Santana struck out, but two-out singles by Lorenzo Cain and Christian Yelich gave the Brewers the lead.
With all the craziness that followed in those final two innings, it stood to reason that Davies’ outing faded into the background. But that doesn’t mean it should be minimized.
“Oh, man, that’s a great outing,” Counsell said. “To come back and be put into this atmosphere, it was really the perfect atmosphere for him to come back. He tunnels in, he doesn’t let a lot of things get in his way and I thought he was outstanding.
“The first inning was a little weird, but he overcame that and he was outstanding.”
Despite his performance, Davies will remain in limbo a bit as the Brewers sort out their starting pitching. There are other moving parts with the team adding Gio Gonzalez via trade and Junior Guerra trending in the wrong direction over his last five starts.
It stands to reason Gonzalez will be in the rotation before long, but Davies should get the ball again relatively soon to try and build on what he did Monday.