Minnesota beats Milwaukee in lopsided fashion, 7-1

The Milwaukee Brewers faced off with the Minnesota Twins tonight, and the outcome was not good. When Brandon Woodruff starts, one should be confident in Milwaukee’s chances of winning. After tonight’s contest, Milwaukee is 3-3 in Brandon Woodruff starts. Minnesota got Woody’s pitch count up as they put the ball in play all night and many found holes.

While Woodruff and the defense behind him limited damage, he was forced to labor through his 5+ innings. Minnesota got nine hits off Woody, many of them of the “seeing-eye” variety. They could only score two, but Woody would not go deep into this one.

The Twins got the first run off Woodruff in the third inning. With one out, Ildemaro Vargas tripled. The next hitter up, Ryan Jeffers, would earn a milestone souvenir in the form of the ball that he got his first major league hit with. That Jeffers single also drove in Vargas for the first run of the game.

The defense was able to help Woodruff quite a bit tonight, or this game could have gotten ugly. The bottom of the fourth inning looked as if it might get away, but a couple of stellar defensive plays like these, and the damage was limited. Unfortunately this was almost all the highlight worthy action Milwaukee could muster.

As I indicated before, Brandon Woodruff was pitching with men on for much of the night. In the bottom of the fifth, the Twins punched one more run across. With the bases loaded, Eddie Rosario scored on a sacrifice fly by Vargas making it 2-0.

Woodruff came out for the sixth, but was unable to get the first two hitters of the inning. With his pitch count getting high, Craig Counsell pulled him for Freddy Peralta. Peralta was able to pitch out of harm’s way in that sixth inning. Woodruff’s night ended with him giving up just the two runs while scattering nine hits and walking one.

As has been the case for many of Milwaukee’s games this season, the offense failed to show up. They were only able to conjure up five hits while being no-hit into the fifth inning. The only offensive highlight of the game produced the only run of the game for the Brewers. In the top of the seventh. Justin Smoak laced an opposite field homer over the left field fence to cut the Twins’ lead to one at the time. Unfortunately the wheels would come off over the next couple of innings.

In the bottom of the seventh, the Twins responded by scoring two. With Freddy Peralta pitching in his second inning of work, Max Kepler got things rolling with a single to left field. Two batters later, Nelson Cruz launched his ninth home run of the year to make it 4-1.

Minnesota broke it open in the bottom of the eighth off Angel Perdomo. Making just his second big league appearance of his career, the big left-hander struggled. On a positive note, every out he recorded was a strike out. The problem was that he also walked three (one intentionally), hit a batter, walked in a run, and gave up a 2-run double inside the first base bag that made the Twins’ lead all but insurmountable going into the ninth. And in fact the lead was insurmountable as the Twins took this contest 7-1. They also took two of three in this series and four of six from the Brewers across their two series. The loss drops Milwaukee one game below .500.

The Brewers next head to Pittsburgh for a 3-game series with the Pirates. Scheduled to pitch in game one of the series for Milwaukee is Adrian Houser. The Pirates will send Chad Kuhl to the mound. First pitch is scheduled for 6:05 CT. WTMJ 620 and Fox Sports Wisconsin will have the coverage.