The Milwaukee Brewers continued their fantastic run of form with another win over the Atlanta Braves. After eking past Atlanta during last night’s contest, the Brewers more assertive this time around as they dominated Atlanta to the tune of 7-2.
This one was close for a couple of innings, as Joey Wentz and Freddy Peralta traded scoreless innings to start things off. It didn’t take long for things to eventually unravel for our Braves in this one, as the Brewers treated themselves to putting up a crooked number on the board in the third inning. Blake Perkins led off that frame with a single, stole second and then was joined on the basepaths by Joey Ortiz and Caleb Durbin in order to load the bases against Wentz. Wentz was an out away from escaping the jam but Milwaukee broke through for the game’s first run on a short chopper from Christian Yelich to a dangerous part of the middle of the infield. Ozzie Albies tried his best to charge the ball and flip it to first base for the third out but in these wet conditions, that was a whole lot easier said to done. Yelich made it to first safely, Blake Perkins crossed home plate and the Braves were down one.
It sure didn’t help matters when Wentz uncorked a wild pitch that plated Joey Ortiz and then after a 12-pitch battle, Andrew Vaughn won the duel and brought in a pair of runs in order to bring us to a 4-0 scoreline at that point. Atlanta put two baserunners on during the bottom half of the third but they were unable to cash anything in at that point. The Braves wouldn’t have to wait too much longer to finally get on the scoreboard and in what is becoming less and less of a surprising development, Eli White was the one who delivered Atlanta’s offensive breakthrough in this one. Freddy Peralta left White a meatball in the middle of the zone to crush and Eli did just that, as he powered it out to the seats in left field for a solo homer that put the Braves on the board.
Once the sixth inning rolled around, the Braves were still within three runs of Milwaukee but unfortunately, Wentz ran into some more trouble in this frame. Issac Collins hit a one-out triple and then Brice Turang immediately followed it up with an RBI single that pushed the deficit back to four runs. Atlanta tried to immediately get that run back in their half of the inning, as they found themselves in a bases loaded situation with two out in the sixth inning. Marcell Ozuna coaxed a walk out of reliever Nick Mears and Brian Snitker went with Luke Williams as a pinch runner in an effort to make sure there was speed on the basepaths should Jurickson Profar come through with a hit. Sadly, Profar did not come through with a hit — Profar worked his way into a full count but struck out on a slider from Mears to end the scoring threat right then and there.
That missed opportunity immediately came back to bite the Braves. Joey Ortiz led off the seventh against Tyler Kinley with a walk and then promptly stole second base to immediately get into scoring position. After Kinley got the first two outs of the inning, Austin Cox came in and it didn’t go particularly well from there. Cox walked Christian Yelich and Andrew Vaughn in consecutive at-bats before giving Issac Collins a heater right down the middle. Collins smacked it right up the middle for a base hit that brought home both Yelich and Ortiz in order to make it a 7-1 game.
The Braves once again threatened to take a chunk out of Milwaukee’s lead once it was their turn to bat but once again, the Braves saw a golden chance to get back into the game go by the wayside. The first three batters for Atlanta all reached safely against Aaron Ashby to start the seventh but then Michael Harris II and Ozzie Albies both went down. Eli White was able to pick up a walk that brought in a run but the scoring threat ended with another strikeout with the bases loaded. Ashby got Nacho Alvarez Jr. to chase what would’ve been ball four in order to go down swinging and squander another chance to get back into the game.
That was it for Atlanta’s offense on the night, as this was basically a story of one team taking their chances and another team letting them evaporate into dust in the wind. There’s a reason why one team is currently sitting on top of the baseball pile and the other one has its fans currently bookmarking Tankathon.com/mlb. The Brewers have already taken the series and they’ll be looking to take the sweep tomorrow night at 7:15 p.m. ET.
Spencer Strider will try to stop them — a lot of teams and pitchers have been having a ton of trouble keeping this Brewers team quiet at the moment but hey, maybe Strider will pull it off and help the Braves avoid getting swept on Wednesday night. We’ll see what happens.