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It was a night of returns at American Family Field. Fan favorite and longtime Brewer Freddy Peralta made his first appearance at the ballpark in a uniform other than the Brewers’, while Jacob Misiorowski was back on the hill after taking a couple of weeks off around the All-Star break in an effort to limit his innings as we get toward the business end of the season. Even Billye Aaron, the widow of the late Henry, was back in Milwaukee as part of the Brewers’ celebration of Aaron’s 755th and final major-league homer, on a night when another Brewer hit his very first.
Misiorowski had a solid start, one that was intentionally shorter than we’re used to seeing from him, but things did not go well for Peralta, whose unsuccessful season with the Mets drags toward what feels like an inevitable conclusion as we approach the trade deadline. On top of it all, the Dodgers dropped their game with the Phillies tonight, and the Brewers ended the evening with the best record in baseball.
Was there any doubt that Misiorowski would come out after almost two weeks fired up? After taking a couple of 102 mph strikes to start the game, New York’s leadoff hitter A.J. Ewing was called out on a knee-buckling curveball. Juan Soto was next, and he got four straight fastballs between 103.6 and 104 mph—he swung and missed and the first, watched the second for a ball, and swung and missed again at the third and fourth. After Bo Bichette reached on a swinging bunt, Francisco Lindor (after going 3-for-3 with two walks yesterday) hit a solid single into left, but Jorge Polanco struck out on three pitches and the back-to-back two-out hits didn’t matter. It was a scoreless three-strikeout first inning for Miz.
Christian Yelich started the game by working Peralta into one of his patented full counts, but a ground ball to second ended the at-bat. Jackson Chourio drew a walk on four pitches, and Brice Turang followed with a rude greeting to his old teammate, a line drive down the right-field line. Chourio came around to score from first base, and Turang was into second with an RBI double. William Contreras nearly burned a Brewers challenge on a 1-2 pitch that just scraped the edge of the zone, but wisely decided against it, and he became the second out. Garrett Mitchell, though, continued his hot streak by lining an RBI single to right. Andrew Vaughn popped out to shallow right for the third out, but Milwaukee had jumped out to a 2-0 lead on their old pal.
Jared Young was the first non-strikeout out recorded by Misiorowski when he grounded out to second to start the top of the second inning, but Miz was back on the Ks with strikeouts of the newly returned Luis Robert Jr. and Brett Baty to end a 1-2-3 inning.
After a Jake Bauers strikeout started the bottom of the inning, Brian Anderson commented that Cooper Pratt was still looking for his first home run—mere seconds before Pratt launched one into the Brewer bullpen for career homer number one.
After Joey Ortiz struck out, Yelich kept the hit parade going with a fly ball to left that got over Soto’s head for a double (and yes, a better fielder probably would have caught it, but Yeli needs the break right now). A Chourio groundout ended the inning, but Milwaukee was up 3-0 after two.
Francisco Alvarez lined a single up the middle for a base hit on Misiorowski’s first pitch of the third. Ewing hit a hard grounder right at Vaughn that should’ve been a double play, but Vaughn whiffed on it and instead the Mets had runners on the corners with no outs for Soto. Soto hit a hard grounder to second which Turang made a nice play on to start a 4-6-3 double play; Alvarez scored from third, but the Brewers now had two outs and no runners on. Miz temporarily lost his command and walked Bichette on four pitches, but after a visit from Contreras, Lindor flew out to center to end the inning.
Mitchell’s hot hitting continued when he sliced a ground-rule double down the left-field line with two outs in the third, and that sparked a quick two-out rally when, on the next pitch, Vaughn blasted a fastball out to left for his third homer of the season and first since June 8th. The Brewers lead was up to 5-1. A Bauers groundout ended the inning, but the Brewers had Peralta on the ropes after three innings.
Jared Young picked up another infield hit for the Mets with one out in the second, but Robert Jr. struck out and Baty popped out and it was a scoreless top of the fourth for Misiorowski. Pratt led off the bottom of the inning with a single on a soft line drive to left, and then with Ortiz at the plate, he stole second. Ortiz struck out, but Pratt moved up again on a wild pitch to Yelich. Yelich, though, could only manage a soft grounder to first on which Pratt had to hold at third, and a strikeout of Chourio gave Peralta his first scoreless inning of the game.
Misiorowski, whose usage is being heavily monitored—comments from Pat Murphy before the game suggested this would be a shorter outing—was finished after four innings and 65 pitches. He was good, if not perfect, today: he walked one, gave up four hits (two of them of the infield variety) and allowed only an unearned run while striking out six, and left the game with a four-run advantage. Replacing Miz was Craig Yoho, looking for a bounce back after his tough outing on Saturday. Yoho walked Ewing with one out, but struck out Soto and Bichette to end a scoreless inning.
Peralta had his first flawless inning in the fifth. In the bottom of the frame, Brewers fans were treated to the debut of new acquisition Lance McCullers Jr., who replaced Yoho. In his first inning of work, McCullers—who recently made three rehab starts in the Astros’ system but hadn’t pitched in a big-league game since May 13th—looked surprisingly sharp. He started with a strikeout of Lindor, then got groundouts from Polanco and Young to end the inning.
Peralta kept going despite an elevated pitch count in the sixth. After Vaughn lined out, Bauers walked and Pratt picked up his third hit of the game, a single that put runners on the corners with one out. That was the end of the line for Peralta, but it wasn’t the end of his scoreline—on the second pitch from Xzavion Curry, Ortiz snuck one over the wall down the left-field line for a three-run homer, his fifth of the season and third in the last two weeks. Don’t look now, but in 21 games since June 27th, Ortiz has four homers and an OPS near .900. A Yelich groundout, Chourio walk, and Turang strikeout ended the inning, but the Brewers were up to an 8-1 lead.
Ortiz’s homer closed the book on a bitter comeback for Peralta. His final line consisted of eight hits, two walks, six strikeouts, and seven runs (all earned), and his season ERA bumped up over five.
Robert Jr. started the seventh with a hard line drive off of McCullers, but Ortiz snagged it out of the air for the first out. McCullers followed with strikeouts of Baty and Alvarez, and he had his second straight perfect inning. With two outs in the bottom of the inning, Vaughn put good wood on another ball and missed a homer by a few feet (it was just to the left of the cutout in right field). Instead, he settled for a double (his second extra-base hit of the day, both off of right-handed pitchers), and was stranded when Bauers struck out.
The first blemish on McCullers’ line came when Soto drew a one-out walk in the top of the eighth, and that was followed by a well-placed fly ball from Bichette that landed for a double down the right-field line. Soto held at third, but scored on an RBI groundout by Lindor, and a two-out single from Polanco scored Bichette, too. A groundout by Young ended the inning, and while the Mets cut into Milwaukee’s advantage, it was still an 8-3 game.
Curry had a quick bottom of the eighth to finish with 2 2/3 innings. McCullers took a seat in favor of Grant Anderson in the ninth; Anderson struck out the first two batters of the inning, walked Alvarez,
The Brewer offense had a really nice game after looking a bit discombobulated against the Marlins over the weekend, even while picking up the sweep. Pratt lead the way with three hits including his first homer, and the Brewers also got home runs from Ortiz and Vaughn, who also hit a double. Yelich, Turang, and Mitchell added doubles of their own, and it was a fun ten-hit, eight-run game for the offense. On the other side, it was all good news: Misiorowski looked sharp in his return to the mound, Yoho had a solid bounce-back outing, McCullers looked like a guy who could help, and Anderson closed the door without any excitement.
The series continues tomorrow with Brandon Sproat the team with whom he debuted last season. Rookie Zac Thornton will pitch for the Mets. Be here for first pitch at 6:40 p.m.
