Crew Rights Course Against Mets, 5-1

The Brewers righted their five-game skid in a 5-1 victory over the Mets Friday night. The win brings their division-clinching magic number down to two.

Eric Lauer went from a rough start to a quality start, earning a standing ovation after 6.2 innings. He allowed only three hits and one (earned) run, walked two, struck out nine, and gave a depleted bullpen a much-needed light day.

Lauer pitched through some early traffic and some adversity. He needed 39 pitches and two mound visits to get through the first inning, in which the Mets scored early off a Brandon Nimmo leadoff triple, followed by a run-scoring Francisco Lindor groundout. Willy Adames turned an amazing play to get Lindor at first and leave Lauer with only one out to get in the inning, but then committed a throwing error that allowed Pete Alonso to reach with two outs. The Mets would go on to load the bases. Lauer needed 14 pitches to get the third out of the inning. It wasn’t efficient, but Lauer did well to limit the Mets to only one run.

This allowed Kolten Wong to answer back and tie the game in the Brewer half of the first. That makes seven leadoff home runs for Kolten this season.

Lauer would recover some ground in the second and third innings, requiring a total of twenty-three pitches to go three-up and three-down in both innings. He would give up only a walk and a single between the second inning and his exit in the seventh

Kolten Wong led off the third inning with a walk, which meant Willy Adames’ first-pitch shot to center, his twenty-third on the year and first since his quad injury, was good for two runs. Christian Yelich followed up with his own shot to center to put the Brewers up 4-1 at the end of the inning.

Yeli would come on to score again and go on cycle watch in the fifth. He opened the inning with a split-lip triple and scored on an Avisaíl García sac fly to bring Milwaukee up 5-1. Yelich went 2-3 on the night with a walk and two runs.

Brent Suter came on to close out the seventh inning on a single pitch and put up a three-up, three-down inning of his own in the eighth. Josh Hader had a 1-2-3 inning of his own in the ninth.

The Crew will face the Mets with Corbin Burnes on the mound tomorrow, as they aim for their division clinch.