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It’s become increasingly rare that Corbin Burnes has an off night on the mound, but that’s what happened for the Milwaukee Brewers on Tuesday night against the San Diego Padres. Burnes set a record earlier in the season for most strikeouts to start a year before allowing his first walk, but was uncharacteristically wild in this game, and it first bit him in the third inning.
Burnes walked Victor Caratini to lead off, then plunked Ha-Seong Kim with a 97 MPH sinker. After a punchout and a flyout, the Padres attempted a double steal with two outs, and Omar Narvaez threw the ball away for an error, allowing the first run to score. Then Jurickson Profar singled with two outs, making it a 2-0 game.
Trouble reared its head again in the sixth. Tommy Pham walked to get things started, stole second base, and advanced to third on a wild pitch. Profar walked, then stole second. Fernando Tatis, Jr. lifted a sac fly to make it 3-0, then the lead turned to 4-0 on an Eric Hosmer single. In all, Burnes pitched 6.0 innings, allowing the four earned runs on just two hits but with three walks. He punched out seven, and allowed five stolen bases on his watch, though without a ton of help from Narvaez behind the dish.
It was another characteristically down night for the Milwaukee offense, who didn’t record their first hit until the bottom of the fifth with a Lorenzo Cain single. The Brewers wound up stranding the bases loaded in that inning, then pushed their only run across in the bottom of the seventh on a Travis Shaw solo home run — the team’s second and final hit of the ballgame.
Eric Yardley, fresh off the injured list, gave up a pair of runs in the seventh, then Josh Lindblom allowed a run during two innings of work (without allowing a base hit) to finish out the 7-1 loss. That drops the Brewers back to .500 at 24-24, and now they’ll face the Padres for game three of the series on Wednesday evening at 6:40 PM central. Eric Lauer will be recalled to face Chris Paddack.