Brewers sweep split squad games, back to .500 in spring training

Brewers 11, Athletics 2

WP: Adrian Houser (1-0)
LP: Jerry Blevins (0-1)

Box Score

In his quest to make the rotation, Brandon Woodruff put together a strong performance today. He started the game for the Brewers and pitched three shutout innings, allowing just a hit and a walk, while striking out five. Meanwhile, the Brewers were staked to an early lead thanks to a throwing error that allowed Manny Pina to reach base, and an RBI single from Keston Hiura gave the Brewers an early 1-0 lead.

The Athletics would come back with a run in the fifth off reliever Adrian Houser, getting a single and a double off of Houser to tie the game at 1-1. Overall, Houser pitched two innings in the game, allowing just those two hits and one run, but nothing else. Zack Brown kept the Athletics off the board with three scoreless innings, just allowing two walks.

The Brewers took full control of the game in the sixth inning. Ben Gamel was hit by a pitch, then Jesus Aguilar and Manny Pina walked to load the bases. Orlando Arcia then hit an RBI double to score two, giving the Brewers a 3-1 lead. They weren’t done there, though. In the next at-bat, Keston Hiura hit a home run for the second straight day to boost that lead to 6-1. Nate Orf followed it up with a home run of his own to make it 7-1. After a strikeout to Troy Stokes, Trent Grisham also added a home run for an 8-1 lead.

In the ninth, the Brewers added on some insurance runs. Tuffy Goeswisch doubled, Tristen Lutz walked, and Antonio Pinero singled to load the bases. Devin Hairston hit a bases-clearing double to push the lead to 11-1. The Athletics did add on a run in the bottom of the ninth off of Deolis Guerra, but that was all they could muster for a comeback, and the Brewers took an 11-2 win.

Brewers 5, Angels 1

WP: Josh Tomlin (2-1)
LP: Trevor Cahill (0-1)
SV: Miguel Sanchez (2)

Box Score

Down in Tempe, it was Josh Tomlin who kept the Angels in check for most of the day. He made the start and pitched five shutout innings, allowing just one hit and one walk while striking out three. Before Tomlin could even take the field, the Brewers had already staked him to a 2-0 lead, thanks to leadoff back-to-back home runs from Eric Thames and Christian Yelich on back-to-back pitches.

After that, the pitchers settled in and both teams were held off the scoreboard for a while. Corey Knebel followed Tomlin with a perfect inning that included a strikeout, and Josh Hader also had a perfect inning with two strikeouts.

After Jake Hager hit a sacrifice fly in the top of the eighth to up the lead to 3-0, Marcos Diplan did run into a bit of trouble in the bottom of the inning. Jordan Zimmerman walked, Roberto Pena singled, and Brennon Lund hit a sacrifice fly to put the Angels on the board at 3-1. Two more walks ended the day for Diplan, and Miguel Sanchez got the Brewers out of the bases loaded jam with a strikeout.

The Brewers did tack on two more runs in the top of the ninth after Blake Allemand made it to third on a fielding error from Brendon Sanger, then scored on Dillon Thomas’ sacrifice fly. Jacob Nottingham singled to follow that up, stole second, and then scored on a single from Brice Turang. Sanchez then finished the ninth inning to record the win for the Brewers.

At 8-8, the Brewers are back at Maryvale tomorrow for a big matchup against the Cubs. With Daylight Savings Time beginning tonight, spring training games will move back an hour for most of us. Tomorrow’s game will begin at 3:05 pm, and it will be on Fox Sports Wisconsin.