Brewers lose to Padres in extra innings 6-4

Box Score

The Brewers did break their scoreless streak today. However, they weren’t able to score enough to get a win.

Kolten Wong led off the game by breaking the Brewers scoreless streak, hitting a leadoff home run to give the Brewers an early 1-0 lead. That was all they could get off of starter Mike Clevinger, though. Clevinger pitched three innings, allowing just that one hit and also walked two. Five of the nine outs he recorded were by strikeout.

Meanwhile, Eric Lauer rebounded from his last rough start, but the Brewers defense didn’t do him any favors. All of the damage done against Lauer was done in the fifth inning. Trent Grisham led off the inning with a double, then Jose Azocar reached when the Brewers had Grisham trapped between second and third, but Pablo Reyes missed a catch and everyone was safe on base. The inning devolved from there as the Padres recorded two more singles and an RBI groundout, and they had a 3-1 lead at the end of the fifth. Two of the three runs were ruled as unearned to Lauer.

Other than that one inning, Eric Lauer had a good day. He pitched six innings, allowed six hits and three runs (one earned). He also had four strikeouts and two walks.

In the bullpen, Brad Boxberger, Devin Williams and Josh Hader kept the game close as the Brewers tried to rally and take the lead. The Brewers did tie up the game in the eighth, as Kolten Wong hit his second home run of the day. This was a two-run shot with Pablo Reyes on base from a leadoff single. The Brewers had a chance to take the lead with the bases loaded that inning, but could not score another run.

The game went into extra innings tied at 3-3. Trevor Gott came in to pitch the tenth with Jose Azocar starting at second base. Jurickson Profar singled to start the inning, and then Jake Cronenworth homered to right to give the Padres a 6-3 lead. The Brewers had a chance to respond with Tyrone Taylor starting on second base. Christian Yelich moved Taylor up to third with a groundout and Andrew McCutchen singled to bring Taylor in. Rowdy Tellez came up as the tying run, but grounded into a double play to end the game.

Three players had multi-hit days. Andrew McCutchen went 3-for-5, breaking a 1-for-38 stretch in his last nine games. Kolten Wong went 2-for-5 and Pablo Reyes was 2-for-4. On the other side, Tyrone Taylor, Christian Yelich and Jace Peterson were 0-for-4, though Taylor and Yelich did record one walk each. Rowdy Tellez had the roughest day, going 0-for-5 with three strikeouts and the game-ending double play.

With the loss today, the Brewers lead in the division is down to one game, pending tonight’s Cardinals-Cubs game. They have lost five of their last six games, though they went 9-9 in this string of 18 games in 17 days. It’s been a brutal stretch for them with several injuries and new players making debuts. Some of those injured players should return after the off day.

The Brewers have a day off tomorrow, and then open a series against the Phillies on Tuesday. Jason Alexander will make his second start, and he will face Ranger Suárez. First pitch is at 7:10 PM.