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The Milwaukee Brewers must win this four-game home stand against the Chicago Cubs. Unfortunately, they got things started on the wrong foot in game one on Thursday with a 10-5 loss.
The Brewers went down early in this one. Chase Anderson allowed an RBI double to Willson Contreras, putting Milwaukee behind 1-0.
Fortunately, Hernan Perez would give the fans hope on a two-run homer in the bottom of the second against pitcher-who’s-known-for-being-mean-to-the-Brewers Jose Quintana. Spoiler alert, that was one of two big hits Quintana would surrender all game.
Contreras would get to Anderson again in the fourth inning with a solo homer to tie things up at two. Then, Anthony Rizzo took back the lead in the fifth inning with a two-run double off of Jay Jackson.
Yasmani Grandal refused to allow the Cubs to lead for long. He came to the plate in the fifth and drove in Lorenzo Cain with a two-run homer, his 23rd of the season. That tied things up at four a piece.
Alas, the Cubs were fed up with Milwaukee and decided to put the team away. With Drew Pomeranz on the mound, Anthony Rizzo added another run on a sac fly in the top of the sixth. A few batters later, Pomeranz would allow another Kyle Schwarber grand slam to give the Cubs a commanding 9-4 lead. As if Kyle hadn’t hit enough grand slams in Miller Park this season.
The Milwaukee Nine had little to no fight in them after the Cubs built up a five-run lead. They would only score on Cory Spangenberg’s solo homer in the bottom of the sixth. Chicago got that run back on a David Bote homer in the ninth, and that was all she wrote.
The loss puts Milwaukee five games back of the Cubs for the second Wild Card spot. Our Brew Crew still needs to jump Arizona and Philadelphia on top of that to get into the playoffs.
Zach Davies (8-7, 3.76 ERA) tries to make miracles happen tomorrow against Cole Hamels (7-5, 3.69 ERA). First pitch is at a normal time (7:10 p.m.) because the game is in Milwaukee and Miller Park doesn’t have weird special Friday game rules.