Cleveland downs the Brewers 6-1, Indians bash 5 home runs

The Cleveland Indians’ split squad team crushed five home runs off three Brewers’ pitchers to beat Milwaukee 6-1. Jhoulys Chacin started the game on the mound and was set up to only go one inning and about 35 pitches. He retired the side in the first with just five pitches. Instead of coming back for a second inning of work, Chacin finished up his work in the bullpen and handed over pitching duties to Josh Tomlin.

Tomlin looked pretty good getting good bite on his cutter. He did give up the first run of the game when Mark Mathias launched a home run to left field in the top of the third. The Brewers answered quickly with Corey Ray. This Spring Training the 5th overall pick from the 2016 draft certainly looks like the highly-pedigreed prospect the Brewers thought they were getting. Ray led off the bottom of the third inning with booming shot to right field tying the game 1-1. Unfortunately for the Brew Crew, they would not get another hit until the bottom of the 9th and with the game out of reach.

Junior Guerra pitched two scoreless and former Hiroshima Toyo Carp, Jay Jackson, pitched a scoreless 6th. The solid pitching went by the way side, however, when Trey Supak took over in the 7th, giving up back to back home runs. The first dinger was a two run shot by Jake Bauers. Li-Jen Chu followed him up with a blast of his own, making the score 4-1.

Aaron Wilkerson pitched the last two innings for the Brewers, and the results were less than stellar. Mark Mathias and Li-Jen Chu both hit their second home runs of the day off Wilkerson. Mathias hit his in the 8th and Chu hit his in the 9th.

The results of this game were not very good. The Brewers could only muster two hits, and the pitching in the later part of the game was just plain ineffective. Milwaukee did start only two major leaguers among their positional player group, and they were Eric Thames and Erik Kratz.

On the bright side, Jhoulys Chacin looked sharp, if one can be considered sharp on just five pitches. Junior Guerra and Jay Jackson had good results. Josh Tomlin looked promising although he gave up a home run. As with Chase Anderson, the home run ball was Tomlin’s nemesis in 2018. The brightest note came in the form of Corey Ray. Getting his fifth hit this Spring on a mammoth blast might be the precursor of special things to come.

Nonetheless, the Brewers fall to 1-4 in Cactus League play. Milwaukee will play as a split squad on Thursday as they play both the San Francisco Giants and the Cincinnati Reds. Christian Yelich should see his first action of the spring. Both games are scheduled to begin at 2:05 CST with the Giants coming to American Family Fields of Phoenix.