Freddy Peralta struggles, Brewers beat Reds, 6-4

As bright as the future is for Freddy Peralta, we got a good reminder that the young right-hander is still very much a work in progress.

In his second Spring Training start since signing his multi-year extension, Peralta struck out two batters in his first inning before running into trouble in his second and being unable to finish the third before hitting his pitch limit for the day. By the time all of his baserunners were accounted for, Peralta ended with 2.2 innings and 3 earned runs on 2 hits, 3 walks and a hit batter while striking out 2.

Two of those 3 walks came against Joey Votto, and as such could likely be forgiven. But Peralta struggled with command in the second inning, walk Josh VanMeter and hitting Curt Casali on the foot with a breaking pitch.

Peralta was able to work out of that jam, which was a good scenario to test in spring training, but the 3rd inning saw most of the trouble. It wasn’t good from the start, when he surrendered a leadoff home run to #9 hitter Kyle Farmer on an inside fastball that allowed the Reds to tie the game.

After getting Nick Castellanos to fly out, Peralta’s second walk to Votto would end up being costly, as old friend Mike Moustakas crushed a ball to centerfield that Jace Peterson misjudged and tried to dive for but missed, allowing Votto to score and Moose to get to second base.

Nick Senzel would fly out to the warning track to end Peralta’s day, but Moustakas would still count against his ledger after Clayton Andrews allowed an infield hit to Aristedes Aquino.

The Reds would end up batting around in the inning as Andrews struggled to get the final out. Cincinnati led 4-1 by the time he did.

The lone Brewers run to that point came at the start of the game, when Eric Sogard and Omar Narvaez led off with back-to-back doubles against Luis Castillo to get Milwaukee on the board early.

The Reds ace settled down after that, though, allowing no other baserunners through his 3 innings, racking up 5 strikeouts.

Luckily for the Cactus Crew, they were able to battle back from Peralta’s poor outing. A Manny Pina double in the top of the 4th would turn into a run when Moustakas botched a throw to first base on an Orlando Arcia grounder, allowing Pina to score. Peterson would end up driving in Arcia later in the inning, cutting the deficit to 4-3.

The Brewers would grab the lead with single runs in the 6th and 7th innings, on a Ronny Rodriguez RBI groundout and David Freitas RBI double, respectively. Another run came in on a Lucas Erceg fielder’s choice in the 9th, when Erceg beat out what could’ve been an inning-ending double play with runners on first and third.

Josh Hader was impressive in his inning of work, striking out 2 with his slider, blowing away poor Stuart Fairchild and buckling Joey Votto’s knees.

Eric Yardley, Jake Faria, J.P. Feyereisen and Jesus Castillo picked up the last 5 innings of the game, only allowing a total of one hit and one walk. Feyereisen allowed the lone hit, but otherwise struck out the side in his inning. Castillo picked up the save by pitching the last 2 innings.

The Brewers return home Friday to play the San Francisco Giants.