Brewers come up short against Rangers, 7-4

Corbin Burnes looked strong in his spring training debut, but the rest of the pitching staff was inconsistent as the Brewers fell 7-4 to the Texas Rangers on Thursday.

Christian Yelich opened the scoring with a first-inning home run. Yelich lifted an outside pitch from Dane Dunning out to left field to make it a 1-0 game.

Burnes breezed through his first two innings, retiring six in a row on 19 pitches. He walked Travis Jankowski to open the third inning. After a wild pitch and a one-out base hit by Ezequiel Duran scored Jankowski, Craig Counsell pulled Burnes for Tyler Herb. The Rangers would tack on another run on a Joe McCarthy single to make it 2-1.

Texas extended its lead in the fourth, scoring three runs on a series of singles against Robert Gasser to make it a 5-1 game. The Brewers got a run back in the bottom half of the inning on a single by Skye Bolt.

Janson Junk and Abner Uribe handled the middle innings, combining for three scoreless frames. Meanwhile, the Brewers picked up two runs in the bottom of the fifth to cut the lead to 5-4. William Contreras drove in a run with a bases-loaded groundout, and Tyler Naquin plated another with a sac fly.

The Rangers added a pair of runs against Caleb Boushley in the eighth and ninth innings. The Brewers went quietly at the plate over the final four innings, leaving the final score 7-4.

The Cactus Crew is back in action on Friday afternoon against the Cleveland Guardians. Bryse Wilson gets the start for the Brewers opposite Zach Plesac. First pitch is scheduled for 2:05 p.m. CT.