Brewers escape with rubber match win over Reds, 7-6

Box Score

The Brewers escaped with a victory despite some shaky bullpen work after six strong innings from Brandon Woodruff, taking the rubber match against the Reds, 7-6.

After Woodruff struck out the side to start the game, the Brewers’ offense got off to a hot start themselves. Christian Yelich and Willy Adames both singled before Rowdy Tellez drove them in with a double to make it 2-0 quickly.

Woodruff allowed the Reds to knot it up at 2-2 in the top of the second on two doubles and two singles, but the Brewers answered back with two outs in the bottom of the inning.

Yelich singled home Jace Peterson, who had walked earlier in the inning, and Adames and Tellez followed that up with back-to-back homers to make it 6-2 after two.

Both offenses settled down a bit from there, with the only other run before the seventh inning coming on Tellez’s second home run of the day in the fourth, a solo shot to make it 7-2.

Woodruff was strong the rest of the day, allowing just the two runs across six innings on five hits and a walk while tallying 11 strikeouts.

Despite the strong start from Woodruff, the Brewers’ bullpen looked shaky and nearly gave the game away late. Peter Strzelecki took the ball in the seventh with a 7-2 lead but immediately gave up a single and a two-run homer to Alejo Lopez to cut the game to 7-4 Milwaukee.

Strzelecki got out of the inning with three straight groundouts and Taylor Rogers struck out two in a scoreless eighth. While the Brewers had plenty of offense early, they couldn’t muster much after the fourth, spoiling a bases-loaded opportunity in the fifth and getting set down in order in the sixth, seventh and eighth.

Devin Williams entered for a save opportunity in the top of the ninth but got into some trouble quickly, allowing a double and single to start the inning. A ground ball to Peterson at third that should have resulted in the first out of the inning instead turned into an error, cutting the lead to 7-5 and giving the Reds runners at second and third with no outs.

Williams settled down under pressure, however, striking out Kyle Farmer and getting TJ Friedl to hit a sac fly to left center as Garrett Mitchell made a clutch diving catch for the second out. With a 7-6 lead and a runner still at second, Williams struck out Jonathan India to end the game.

Tellez had his fifth multi-homer game of the season, going 3-for-5 with the two bombs and a double as well as four RBIs. Yelich went 2-for-5 and Adames went 2-for-4 with a homer of his own. Outside of the top three in the order, the Crew batted just 2-for-19, but the seven runs were enough for the win.

Milwaukee finally gets an off day on Monday before traveling to St. Louis for a quick two-game series against the Cardinals.