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Saturday marked the Cactus League debut of a couple of Milwaukee Brewers who figure to be key to the club’s success in 2021 — Lorenzo Cain and Devin Williams. Cain batted third and played center field, hitting the ball hard a couple times while collecting one base hit. He was admittedly rusty on his defensive reads in the outfield, but the plan is to get him as re-acclimated as possible during the final stretch of spring games.
Williams entered the game in relief in the fifth and was reportedly throwing 96-98 MPH with his fastball while looking sharp with his famous changeup. He also snapped off a few sliders, which would be a new weapon for him in 2021 if he gets comfortable enough with it to bring the pitch to the regular season. A long at-bat resulting in a walk to old friend Mike Moustakas drove Williams’ pitch count up, and he was unable to complete his full inning of work while allowing a double, the base on balls, and an earned run.
Beyond those two, the Brewers played a pretty non-descript game, yet managed to notch the ‘W’ at the end of the day. The offense hung a three-spot on Jose De Leon in the second inning, beginning with a walk by Dan Vogelbach. Travis Shaw doubled as the next batter and Vogelbach motored all the way home from first base. Following Shaw was Omar Narvaez, and he ripped a fly ball over the fence in center field for his second home run of the spring. Milwaukee recorded only three hits and four walk total in this game.
The Brewers added their fourth and final run in the fifth on Cain’s RBI base hit, and Devin’s run was the only allowed by Milwaukee pitching in the contest. Brett Anderson started and went four scoreless innings, working around some traffic (six hits and a walk allowed) by punching out five batters. Clayton Andrews got an out in the fifth to finish the inning for Williams, Jordan Zimmermann threw two scoreless, and Eric Yardley and Miguel Sanchez each tossed a scoreless inning to close out the 4-1 victory.
Now at 10-8-1, the Brewers head back home to Maryvale to take on the Mariners at AmFam Fields of Phoenix on Sunday. Freddy Peralta is expected to toe the slab against James Paxton at 3:10 PM central.