Adames, Brosseau power Brewers to 6-0 win over Mets

In a playoff hunt, teams need their stars to be clicking on all cylinders. When the Brewers clinched the division in 2018, NL MVP Christian Yelich batted .370 with 10 home runs and 34 batted in during September and October. In 2008, CC Sabathia pitched on short rest multiple times, willing the Brewers to their first postseason appearance in 26 years.

Now in 2022, Willy Adames hopes he can join that group of players that got hot when it mattered most, leading the Brewers to the playoffs.

Today, Willy hit his fifth home run in 10 games, breaking a scoreless tie in the fifth. Adames combined with a Mike Brosseau grand slam helped the Brewers avoid the sweep and defeat the Mets, 5-0.

Before all of that happened, Adrian Houser was forcing a lot of outs in the field. In the first, he forced two popouts, one to Adames and the other to Victor Caratini, and a line out. In the second, a fielder’s choice and back-to-back flyouts to Garrett Mitchell left the Mets with nothing on the board. The same story in the third, where two lineouts and a groundout was enough to keep the score at 0-0.

Notice a trend? Through the first three innings, Houser allowed no runs, two hits, one hit by pitch, three lineouts, two flyouts, two popouts, a groundout, and a fielder’s choice. He gave up zero walks while also striking out zero batters.

That trend would continue throughout his start. Houser would go on to complete 4 ²⁄₃ innings of work, allowing zero walks and zero runs while striking out zero Mets batters. Over his last three outings, Houser has struck out just one batter across 12 ²⁄₃ innings.

On the other side, Taijuan Walker was just as effective, In the sixth, the score was still deadlocked at 0-0. Leading off the inning for the Brewers was the red-hot Willy Adames, who launched a solo home run — his 31st of the year — into the Brewers bullpen, giving the Brewers a 1-0 lead. Per Dominic Cotroneo on Twitter, Adames is slashing .320/.385./.609/.944 with eight home runs and 29 RBI since August 19th.

In the seventh, following Brad Boxberger recording the first strikeout by a Brewers pitcher all afternoon, the Brewers added on major insurance runs to seal the game. The big inning started with a Jace Peterson walk and Caratini single to put men at the corners. Next up, Tyrone Taylor broke out the pitching wedge and lofted a bloop single to center, driving in Peterson and extending the lead to 2-0.

A few batters later, with the bases now loaded and two outs, pinch-hitting star Brosseau took a two-strike slider out to left for the first grand slam of his career. The home run just sneaked over the wall below the Restaurant To Be Named Later to make the score 6-0.

With a comfortable lead, Brent Suter and Jake Cousins combined for clean eighth and ninth innings, giving the Brewers a must-needed win to end the homestand. The team now heads out to Cincinnati to begin a four-game series with the Reds on Thursday. The first pitch is at 5:40, with Brandon Woodruff squaring off with the hard-throwing Hunter Greene.