Giants pound Brewers 10-1

Jimmy Nelson didn’t have it today, and the Brewer defense made sure he couldn’t find it. Nelson lasted 3.2 innings, allowing 8 hits and 3 walks, with 8 runs crossing the plate (6 earned). With Johnny Cueto going for the Giants, and Ryan Braun and Chris Carter taking the day off for the Brewers, things were pretty much over at that point.

The Giants put together back to back 4 run innings in the third and fourth. Throwing errors by the battery (Nelson and Martin Maldanado) abetted the third inning rally, and saw RBI hits from Buster Posey and Matt Duffy.

The bottom of the fourth saw more of the same - literally. The Giamts again plated four, again aided by a Maldanado throwing error, and included RBI hits from Joe Panik and Angel Pagan. Jhan Marinez relieved Nelson after Pagan’s double, and gave up an RBI hit to Jarrett Parker (after a wild pitch).

The Brewers tallied their only run in the top of the fifth when Hernan Perez, starting at third after two starts in rightfield, singled to lead off the inning. He advanced to third on two groundouts and came in to score on a single by Alex Presley.

Jacob Barnes pitched the bottom of the eighth for the Brewers and gave up the final Giant runs on a two RBI hit by Ramiro Pena. In all, the Giants rapped out 16 hits, with four players having 3 hits each.

The Brewers ended with 8 hits, with only Jonathon Lucroy having a multiple hit game (TVR). Half the hits didn’t mean half the runs, but then again the Brewers made 4 errors to the Giants’ none.

The loss dropped the Brewers to 30-36, and the red-hot Giants are now at 41-26. The Brewers move down to LA, facing the Dodgers for four games over the weekend. The Dodgers stand at 36-32 after today’s win over the D’Backs as Clayton Kershaw won his tenth. Cueto also notched his tenth in his win today over the Brewers.

The Brewers will send Junior Guerra (3-1, 3.31) to the bump at Chavez Ravine to face Scott Kazmir (5-3, 4.52) for the Dodgers. The Brewers generally play the Dodgers better than the Giants recently, so they got that going for them. I’m not going to check the records, in case I’m wrong.