Chase Anderson dominates again as Milwaukee Brewers slay Giants, 5-2

Chase Anderson extended his run of dominance, the Brewers offense roared back to life, and the bullpen just barely held as Milwaukee evened the series against San Francisco Tuesday night with a 5-2 win over the visiting Giants.

The Brewers offense, tasked with building a lead even their beleaguered bullpen couldn’t surrender, set to work early against Giants starter Matt Cain. The prospect of racking up crooked numbers against Cain may once have been too big an ask, but it’s not 2012 anymore, and Milwaukee was able to batter Cain early and often.

Hernan Perez got things started in a four-run second with a solo dong, his seventh of the season. A failed bunt attempt from Chase Anderson with runners at the corners and one out seemed like it would let Cain wriggle off the hook, but a sky-high pop up from Eric Sogard halfway up the third base line fell between a trio of Giants, allowing both runners to score and Sogard to end up at second. Santana collected another two-out RBI with a single to cash in Sogard. The Brewers would bat around in the second, with Hernan leaving the bases loaded on a pop out to center.

Anderson atoned for his second inning mistake and tacked on a Badger Mutual in support of himself with a two-out double that scraped the top of the wall, scoring Keon Broxton. It was the first extra base hit of Anderson’s career, who owned an OPS of .297 in 143 career appearances entering play Tuesday.

His exploits on the mound, of course, are of much more importance, and Anderson twirled his third-straight scoreless gem, running his scoreless inning streak to 21.2 innings as he kept an inert Giants offense silent over 7.2 scoreless. Anderson is now within spitting distance of Teddy Higuera’s franchise record of 32 straight scoreless frames, set in 1987. Anderson kept the Giants out of the business column of the scoreboard despite a number of infield singles/errors that plagued the Brewers throughout the night.

It was another white knuckle night for the Brewers bullpen, as Carlos Torres relieved Anderson but could not collect the four outs the Brewers needed from him without incident. Torres, of course, was responsible for Milwaukee’s disastr—

***Look, I need to interrupt here to talk about Scooter Gennett, who hit four home runs against the Cardinals tonight in what will certainly be the greatest night of his career. Gennett’s 5-for-5, 10 RBI game raised his wRC+ from 97 to 136 in one night, and it is June.***

—ous loss on Saturday when he surrendered five runs to the Los Angeles Dodgers in the ninth. Torres got his man in the eighth, but was unable to record an out in the ninth, giving way to Corey Knebel after his throwing error left the Giants with two in and runners on second and third. The Brewers closer was able to douse the fire with three straight outs, but it is a major concern that Milwaukee can't even get four outs in mop up time without needing to turn to their closer.

On Deck: The Brewers will send Jimmy Nelson, who still owns the Brewers’ best start of the season after his last time out against the Dodgers despite Anderson’s best efforts, to the mound tomorrow. He’ll face Giants rookie Ty Blach, a soft-tosser whose 3.55 K/9 is the lowest among qualified starters since Livan Hernandez in 2008.