Brewers top Royals 5-2, extend win streak to 7

WP: Zach Davies (2-2); LP: Ian Kennedy (1-3); Save: Jeremy Jeffress (1); Home runs: Mil - Travis Shaw (5), Lorenzo Cain (3); KC: Salvador Perez (1)

Yet another Box Score

The Milwaukee Brewers (15-9) moved their winning streak against three of the weakest teams in baseball to seven with a 5-2 win over the Kansas City Royals (5-16) in Kansas City’s Kauffman Stadium. Zach Davies grabbed his second win of the season and the Crew used homers from Travis Shaw and Lorenzo Cain to win comfortably.

Good defense also contributed to the win, with a nice play from Jonathan Villar on Jon Jay leading off the game, Davies getting off the mound on a bunt from Mike Moustakas to end the first frame, and Eric Thames made a diving stop of a Moustakas grounder in the bottom of the eighth, with a toss to Dan Jennings for the out.

Davies looked solid for his first three innings and shaky for his final three, but that adds up to six innings of work and he left with that 4-2 lead. His first three innings were scoreless, with two singles and two strikeouts. In innings four through six he gave up a home run down the left field line to Salvador Perez in the fourth and a lead-off double to Alex Gordon in the fifth. Gordon later scored on a sacrifice fly. Zach walked two in the bottom of the sixth but a Perez double play from Shaw to Villar to Thames helped him get through the inning unscathed.

Matt Albers pitched the seventh and allowed a single, notched a strikeout, and no runs, then came out to face one in the eighth - retiring Whit Merrifield on a flyball to Cain. With two lefties in the next three batters Craig Counsell went with lefty Dan Jennings.

Jennings finished out the eighth and retired Lucas Duda to start the ninth before giving way to Jeremy Jeffress, who earned his first save of the season with ²⁄₃ of an inning and a walk and a hit allowed. The hit, however, actually resulted in an out when Gordon’s routine grounder hit Jorge Soler (the walkee) in the foot. Why is that a hit and not a fielder’s choice?

The Brewers scored all of the runs they would need with a four run third inning off of Royals’ starter Ian Kennedy. Jonathan Villar singled to lead things off and took second on an infield out by Eric Sogard. Cain drew a walk, and Chritian Yelich’s grounder to first moved both runners up. Ryan Braun smoked a liner back up the middle that caromed off of the top of Kennedy’s foot and to the firstbase line, scoring Villar. The Royals checked on Kennedy to see if he was OK, and after three test throws it was determined that he was fine. He wasn’t - Travis Shaw took a high fastball out deep to right to push the lead to 4-0. Kennedy left after three innings.

After the Royals’ solo runs in the fourth and fifth, Milwaukee pushed the lead back to three when Cain celebrated his return to Kauffman Stadium by leading off the top of the seventh with his third homer of the season to right center. LoCain ended his night by reaching four times (two walks, the homer, and an infield single), scoring twice and with the one RBI.

Braun also reached four times with two singles and two walks, scoring once and driving in one. Villar had three singles for the night.

Milwaukee will go with Jhoulys Chacin (1-1, 4.18) tomorrow, pushing Chase Anderson back to Thursday against the Cubs at Wrigley. The Royals counter with Jason Hammel (0-1, 3.20) to conclude the short two game set in KC.