Arcia homers again, powers Brewers to 4-2 win over Royals

Success in the first week of Spring Training games is by no means indicative of future success, but — it’s nice to see Orlando Arcia take some good-looking swings, isn’t it?

The Brewers overcame some sloppy defense — again to be expected in the first couple weeks of camp — thanks to a three-run home run by Arcia in a 4-run 2nd inning to beat the Kansas City Royals, 4-2, and improve to 3-2-1 in Cactus League play.

After going down 1-2-3 in the first inning against Royals starter Jakob Janis, the Brewers nearly batted around in the 2nd against Scott Blewett. A Logan Morrison single and a Ben Gamel double set up the first run of the game — an RBI single by Manny Pina.

Arcia followed that up by staying back on a breaking ball with an even and balanced swing, crushing it more than 400 feet for his second home run of the spring.

That ended up being all the scoring the Brewers would manage, with the reserves coming in about halfway through the game.

Lorenzo Cain saw his first action of the spring, going 1-for-3 with a 2-out single in that 2nd inning. New acquisitions Avisail Garcia and Jedd Gyorko also picked up singles in the 3rd inning.

On the mound, Brewers pitchers — especially Brent Suter — worked around some shaky defense.

After getting some bad luck in his first spring outing, Brett Anderson looked like he might be headed to a similar fate this afternoon when an error by Logan Morrison at first base allowed the game’s first baserunner, which Anderson followed by hitting Salvador Perez on the back foot with a breaking pitch. He was able to get out of the inning with a pair of weak flyouts, though, and bounced back from a leadoff double in the second inning with three straight groundouts.

Adrian Houser followed with 2 shutout innings of his own, allowing 1 hit and 1 walk while striking out 2, both in his first inning of work.

Suter didn’t have Anderson’s luck when it came to working around hits and defensive gaffes. Suter allowed 3 hits in his 2 innings, but also saw 3 errors committed behind him, leading to Kansas City’s 2 (unearned) runs.

Mike Morin, Angel Perdomo and Eric Yardley picked up the game’s final 3 innings, allowing a total of 2 hits while striking out 5 total batters. Yardley got credit for the save, picking up 2 of those strikeouts in the 9th inning.

The Brewers return to TV Friday afternoon, hosting the Dodgers.