Brewers dominate Diamondbacks again in 4-0 victory

The Milwaukee Brewers have won three-in-a-row, and that, my friends, is a winning streak! Chase Anderson and the bullpen teamed up to shut the Arizona Diamondbacks out, the staff’s first shutout since May against the Chicago Cubs.

Chase Anderson made up for his last awful start with this game. The Brewers’ starter only had a couple of tough situations in his five shutout innings.

The first bump in the road for Chase came in the first inning. He walked Ketel Marte and gave up a two-out single to Christian Walker, but struck out Adam Jones to end the inning without issue. In the third inning, Jarrod Dyson doubled with one out and worked his way over to third base. You could see Dyson easily playing with Chase’s head while pretending to break for home, making it harder for the Brew Crew pitcher to throw strikes. Anderson calmed down and was able to get the dangerous Eduardo Escobar to strike out to end the inning.

Meanwhile, the Brewers struggled to push in runs against Zac Gallen. The bats struck out four times and could not advance runners. Then Eric Thames led off the fourth inning with a big solo homer. Trent Grisham followed him up with a massive shot of his own, giving the Crew an easy two-run lead.

The offense would go quiet again until the seventh inning. Lorenzo Cain led off with a walk. Christian Yelich was hit by a pitch and then the bases were loaded for Keston Hiura after Mike Moustakas drew a walk of his own. Hiura, who struck out in each of his three plate appearances before this, lined a ball to the center field gap, easily driving in Cain and Yelich.

After the team took the lead and Anderson left the game, the bullpen took over and dominated the Diamondback’s offense. Junior Guerra, Matt Albers, Alex Claudio and Jay Jackson combined to allow just a hit and a walk through four innings and struck out five hitters. Jackson shut the door to end the game and to clinch the series for the Milwaukee Nine.

The Brewers picked up a game on the Cubs with today’s win, but stay 3.5 back of St. Louis. They are just two games back of Chicago for the second Wild Card, but will also have to leapfrog the Philadelphia Phillies to get that second spot.

Milwaukee goes for the sweep tomorrow against the D-backs’ best pitcher, Robbie Ray (10-7, 3.99 ERA). The Crew will hope Zach Davies (8-6, 3.74 ERA) can hold Arizona’s offense quiet once again while the Brewers’ bats try to get to Ray. First pitch is at 1:10 p.m.