MILWAUKEE — For a good, long stretch it seemed like everything went right for the Brewers. Now, they’re fighting for everything.
You didn’t think this would be easy, did you?
It certainly wasn’t easy on Monday, when Brandon Woodruff cruised into the sixth inning with a 6-0 lead only to depart two outs later with the Brewers hanging on by one run. They hung on the rest of the way, navigating the final 10 outs without closer Trevor Megill to beat the D-backs, 7-5, in the opener of a four-game series at American Family Field.
“When we were on the streak of winning 14 games it seemed the ball would bounce our way,” Woodruff said. “Now it seems like we’re having to fight harder. That’s baseball. It’s going to be like that the rest of the way.”
The Brewers were fighting back from an emotional Sunday, when they celebrated the life of beloved radio broadcaster Bob Uecker and came within one out of treating a sellout crowd to a victory over the Giants, only to see it slip away. This stretch of 19 games in 18 days offers no breaks, so they were back the following night against the D-backs, and this time they were without Megill coming off his 34-pitch outing.
For the first five innings, it looked like the Brewers wouldn’t need a closer at all. Woodruff was sharp as could be through the first five innings, retiring 14 in a row after allowing the only hit on a catchable first-inning popup that dropped between shortstop Andruw Monasterio and left fielder Isaac Collins. At the same time, the Brewers were building their veteran starter a big lead, with most of the damage coming in a five-run third inning rally that started with six consecutive hits off Arizona starter Eduardo Rodriguez. One of them was an RBI single from Monasterio, who struck again in the fourth with a home run that made it 6-0.
But then came the long sixth, when Woodruff, still getting his feet under him after spending nearly two years recovering from right shoulder surgery, appeared to hit a wall. The D-backs touched him for five runs in the span of 12 pitches while left-hander Aaron Ashby warmed in the bullpen, with an 0-2 hit-by-pitch on a borderline strike to Geraldo Perdomo and a Corbin Carroll infield single along the way. The big blow came from Lourdes Gurriel, Jr., who smacked a three-run home run.
“It was a good night. Way too many positives outweigh the outcome of the outing,” said Woodruff, who allowed season-highs for hits (five) and runs (five) while also setting a season highs for pitches (97). “Look, the main thing is we won the game, which is huge for us. The sixth inning, you just chalk that up to being a ‘baseball inning.’ I haven’t had one of those up until this point.”
Even the eventual call to the bullpen wasn’t as smooth as usual. When Pat Murphy came to the mound with two outs in the sixth, he initially left Woodruff in the game. There was only one problem. Pitching coach Chris Hook had already visited the mound earlier in that long inning, so Murphy was required to make a change.
That brought in Ashby, who combined with Nick Mears and Abner Uribe, getting his third save on a day Megill was off-limits, to give the Brewers a hard-fought victory.
“I was locked into the game and I wanted to get through that inning,” Woodruff said. “My body was feeling good and I felt like I was throwing the ball well. … We had to pause and take a little time out and realize that was the second visit of the inning, I can’t keep going. Murph apologized, which he didn’t need to. Just a weird inning overall.”
“When I turned around [the umpires] thought it was to give Ashby more time, but it wasn’t,” Murphy said. “I had just forgotten.”
Uribe had a bit of breathing room thanks to rookie third baseman Caleb Durbin’s second home run in as many games in the bottom of the eighth inning, but still managed to end the game in dramatic fashion with an acrobatic play on Alek Thomas’ game-ending bounceout.
“I feel great with what I’ve been able to do and I’m very happy with myself,” said Uribe, who has gone 17 appearances since he was last charged with an earned run, and is up to a career-high 63 appearances this season. “But at the same time, we play a game that changes every single day. You know how baseball is. It can change at any moment.”
The Brewers know all about that.
Since their franchise-record 14-game winning streak, they had lost six of nine games going into Monday.
“It’s kind of a little test for us,” Durbin said. “That’s kind of what we anticipate the playoffs being like — obviously we have to get there first. But this kind of last stretch into the postseason, you’re going to have really tough games and you might come up short, but you have to be able to bounce back the next day.
