Jesus Aguilar homers again, but Milwaukee Brewers can’t climb over Giants

The Brewers knocked around Matt Cain early and often, but it wasn’t enough to put away the Giants as San Francisco crawled back for a 6-4 victory Wednesday at Maryvale Baseball Park.

Jesus Aguilar’s incredible spring continued, as he homered for the fifth time to increase his Cactus League-leading 1.407 OPS. After going 2-for-3, he was replaced by Ryan Aguilar (no relation, probably), who singled in his first major league at bat of the spring.

Cain allowed four runs on seven hits, including Aguilar’s home run. Milwaukee’s starter Jimmy Nelson should have fared much better, as he allowed just three baserunners over 5.2 innings. Unfortunately all of them scored, two on Denard Span’s home run in the third and the last on a Hunter Pence double allowed by converted first baseman Nick Ramirez, who couldn’t hold his inherited runner.

The Giants were able to claim the lead for good during a Carlos Torres two-out meltdown in the seventh inning, though a line change on defense for Milwaukee may have had something to do with the things as well.

Wednesday’s game wasn’t available on MLB.tv so I’m not sure how cool it was, but Hernan Perez stole his third base of his WBC-shortened spring — and it was home plate on a delayed double steal. The Brewers have been very active on the basepaths this spring, if not the most efficient, stealing 25 bases in 42 attempts. Of course, their two best base stealers, Perez and Jonathan Villar, spent much of the spring representing their countries.

Cactus Cup Update: The Brewers squandered a chance to climb atop the Cactus League standings Wednesday as the Mariners were beaten by the Angels. They remain a half game behind Seattle, and are tied with Los Angeles (AL/B) and Oakland in second place. The tie with the latter will be broken tomorrow, as the Brewers and A’s meet at Hohokam Stadium tomorrow at 3:05 PM CST. Junior Guerra starts for Milwaukee.

Roster happenings: There was a ton of personnel movement news today, so you’d better get on over to the articles Jaymes wrote earlier today for the full breakdown. The Brewers said goodbye a number of players, optioning some - including a very unhappy Michael Blazek - to minor league camp and releasing Joba Chamberlain. We also learned on Monday that first base prospect David Denson, who made national news in 2015 when he came out as gay, has walked away from the game of baseball.