Bats silent in Brewers 1-0 loss to Pirates

WP: Trevor Williams (6-4); LP: Jhoulys Chacin (6-2); Save: Felipe Vazquez (14); Home runs: none

A minimalist box score

No rally from the Milwaukee Brewers (42-30) tonight...in fact, almost no offense at all. The Crew could muster just two hits in PNC Park; the first was a looping fifth inning liner to center by Jonathan Villar, and the second a lined base hit to right by Christian Yellich leading off the ninth. The result was a 1-0 loss to the Pittsburgh Pirates (36-36).

Pirates starter Trevor Williams used lots of off speed pitching to keep Milwaukee off balance. He worked seven innings, with just the one hit, two walks, and a hit batter in turning around a recent string of poor outings, not getting out of the fourth inning in his last four.

Jhoulys Chacin was very good (again) tonight, shutting out the Bucs into the seventh inning, but he ran into trouble then. He allowed single, walk, single, but a caught stealing on the lead-off single kept Pittsburgh scoreless and brought Josh Hader in for Milwaukee with two on and one down. Hader struck out Gregory Polanco but Jordy Mercer pulled an inside fastball down the leftfield line for an RBI double. Hader had a walk to load the bases but caught Josh Harrison looking on a 3-2 pitch to end the frame.

Jacob Barnes took over for the eighth and had a 1-2-3 inning, continuing his string of good outings since returning from a minor league stint.

Milwaukee’s best chance to score off of Williams came in the fourth when Villar’s single followed a two out walk to Hernan Perez. Both moved up on a delayed double steal (Villar moved well off of first and Francisco Cervelli’s throw behind Jonny sent both runners to the next base). Erik Kratz took a called third strike to end the threat.

Kyle Crick had a perfect eighth with a strikeout for the Pirates, and Pittsburgh closer Felipe Vazquez finished the game off despite the lead-off single by Yellich.

So another shutout loss again puts the Brewers in danger of falling behind the Cubs, who are in a rain delay in Chicago tonight. Tomorrow Milwaukee will have rookie Freddie Peralta (1-0, 3.72) making his third start to try and stop the current three game skid. The Pirates’ starter, feel good story and Hernan Perez nick-namer Jameson Taillon (4-5, 3.94), looks to help the Pirates back over .500 and back into the race.