Jimmy Nelson goes the distance as Milwaukee Brewers beat Padres 2-1

WP: Jimmy Nelson, CG (5-3); LP: Luis Perdomo (1-4); Save: NONE; Homeruns: SD - none; Mil - Hernan Perez (10), Manny Pina (4)

Box Score

The Milwaukee Brewers wasted several opportunities in the early innings and made three errors in that same period, but none of it mattered with how Jimmy Nelson worked on the mound today.

The big righty threw the Brewers’ first complete game in two seasons, and the Brewers defeated the San Diego Padres 2-1 on this Fathers’ Day game at Miller Park. Nelson gave up six hits and the one run, walking two and striking out ten. His complete game electrified the crowd and put the Brewers back to five games over .500 at 38-33.

San Diego scored their run in the fifth on an infield single and throwing error from Nelson and an RBI single from Erick Aybar.

After leaving tons of runners on (at least one in scoring position in four of the first five innings) and committing some poor baserunning mistakes (Eric Sogard, especially, channeled his inner Jonathan Villar by getting doubled off of second with two on and one down in the third; it came on a drive into the deep right-center gap that was run down by Franchy Cordero on the warning track), the Brewers finally broke through in the sixth.

As in the rest of the series, it took the long ball to score. Hernan Perez led off the sixth inning with a towering homer into the Brewer bullpen to tie the game. One out later, Manny Pina launched a breaking ball over the pen and put the Brewers on top for the first time today - and for good. Manny Pineapple now has a homer on both Mothers’ Day and Fathers’ Day - and both were game winners. The Brewers scored twelve runs in the 2-1 series win, and all of them came in on the long ball. In fact, they have scored their last 16 runs via the homer - a franchise record.

The Cubs defeated the Pirates today, and remain 2½ games behind the Brewers. The Cardinals lost to Baltimore and the Reds fell to the Dodgers, leaving St. Louis 5½ back, Pittsburgh 6 back, and the Reds (also losers) 7½ back.

The Pittsburgh Pirates (31-38) come to town for a four game set, and tomorrow night’s match has Gerrit Cole (4-5, 4.52 ERA) for the Bucs against Matt Garza (3-2, 4.17) starting for Milwaukee. Game time is 6:40.