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W: Gerrit Cole, 2-0
L: Matt Garza, 1-2
HR: Alvarez (4)
The Brewers had 6 hits today. They were all singles.
Matt Garza got roughed up in the first and had pitch count problems all afternoon. He allowed the first 4 batters to reach in the 1st inning, giving up 2 runs-- one on a wild pitch and the second on a McCutchen single. He maneuvered his way out of a jam and appeared to be settling down. In the 3rd inning, Pedro Alvarez hit a long home run to to dead center, his 4th, 1 more than the Milwaukee Brewers have hit in 12 games.
The Brewer offense showed a bit of life in the second inning with leadoff hits by Scooter Gennett and Luis Jimenez. A run scored on Jean Segura's groundout to short, and a second on a base hit from Lucroy before Braun grounded out to end the inning.
The offense had very little else in the tank the rest of the way against Gerrit Cole. The side struck out in the 3rd. Lucroy singled in the 5th, and Braun followed that up by grounding into a double play. Three straight batters grounded out in the 6th.
Meanwhile, Garza seemed to have things on track to grind out some innings and keep the Brewers in the game until the 6th. He walked the leadoff man Pedro Alvarez, then drilled Jordy Mercer in the ribs while he was attempting to bunt to put 2 on with nobody out (Mercer had to leave the game). Chris Stewart was up next and also attempted to bunt, but Garza spiked a breaking ball for a wild pitch that sent the runners to 2nd and 3rd. With all that help from Garza, Stewart only needed to punch a single to left to get 2 more runs and put things out of reach for the punchless Brewer offense.
After the game, hitting coach Darnell Coles said to Craig Coshun, "Our bats are getting better, but we're hitting a lot of balls at people right now." I don't know what he's been watching, but you can usually tell when a team is getting unlucky and hitting hard line drives at people. This team isn't doing that.