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Shortly after learning that they would be without their franchise player — again — for the foreseeable future, the Milwaukee Brewers were forced to play a baseball game on Tuesday night against the Philadelphia Phillies. Milwaukee’s offense put pressure on opposing starter Aaron Nola right away, with Kolten Wong hitting a leadoff double then scoring on a one-out single by Daniel Vogelbach to put the Brewers on the board first.
The lead didn’t last long, however, as Andrew McCutchen hit a leadoff home run in the bottom of the first inning against Milwaukee’s Eric Lauer. Both sided exchanged zeroes in the second inning, but then in the bottom of the third, Philly put up a big, crooked number. Again, McCutchen got things going by launching his second solo home run of the game to make it 2-1. Rhys Hoskins followed with a single, but he was hosed by Billy McKinney at second base trying to stretch it to a double. So with two outs, JT Realmuto reached on an error by Travis Shaw. Then Alec Bohm singled to put runners on the corners. Didi Gregorious singled to score Realmuto, and he took second on the throw. Finally, old friend Brad Miller dealt a devastating blow with a three-run homer to right field, making the score 6-1.
Lauer settled down and got through six innings with no further damage, allowing the six runs, but with only two of them earned, on eight hits and no walks, with seven punchouts. In the top of the seventh, the offense decided to make things interesting with Nola out of the game. Avisail Garcia led off with a single, then Kolten Wong was hit by a David Hale pitch. Luis Urias singled to bring home Garcia and make it 6-2. A double-switch brought in JoJo Romero, and a pinch-hitting Lorenzo Cain recorded an RBI groundout to make it 6-3. Two batters later, Jackie Bradley, Jr. crushed a two-run dinger to make it 6-5.
Unfortunately, that’s where this game would end as the offense couldn’t push any more runs across in the late innings. Brad Boxberger and JP Feyereisen each recorded a scoreless inning as the record for the Milwaukee Nine dropped to 17-13. The Brewers and Philles will face off once again on Wednesday evening at 6:05 PM central, with Freddy Peralta set to face old friend Chase Anderson.