Get out-slugged by your opponent, win the ball game — it’s been a solid formula for the Brewers.
The Giants’ version: Hit a bunch of home runs, still lose.
Impressive and sporadic solo shots sustained the San Francisco offense for most of the night, yet Milwaukee outscored them by capitalizing on an infield single, free baserunners, a bunt, and clutch hitting.
Willy Adames turned praise into jeers with one swing in the 1st on the first pitch he saw in his return to Wisconsin. Luis Matos doubled the early lead with another homer in the 2nd before Adames punched his second to the opposite field in the 8th for his third multi-homer game as a Giant (he had 7 in 3 1/2 years as a Brewer).
At game’s end, San Francisco’s xBA towered above Milwaukee’s by nearly 60 points. Just not enough, Willy, sorry. Don’t feel bad, though — that’s been the Brewer’s M.O. against everybody since they kicked it into gear in late May. Power stalls. Soft-contact is still contact, and it accumulates. If you chip away at a dam long enough, it will crack. When teams face the Brewers, the recurring chorus of anxiety in the back of players’ heads is not Oh my gosh, they’re going to beat us, it’s Oh my gosh how am I going to screw up? That fear stiffens up the joints like fast-drying caulk in a bathtub. Meanwhile Milwaukee is loose as a goose — one giant, collective hissing, squawking, wing-snapping Canadian goose that no one wants to deal with. Brewers batters are a pain. As a whole, they do the “little things” well. Their rotation is solid. They’re water-tight on defense. Their mid-western success scoffs at the coasts. They’re the envy of all small-market teams across the league, while their critics hope and pray that the wheels will come flying off soon. We can huff-and-puff about their leprechaun-levels of “luck”, how it’s not fair, that the numbers don’t add up, the metrics don’t support the results. How are they allowed to win ballgames? They don’t hit the ball over the fence. They don’t hit it hard.
I guess sometimes it’s not how often you hit the ball hard, but what’s happening in the game when you do. William Contreras certainly picked a good time, blasting a hanging slider over the left field wall in a 4-4 tie in the bottom of the 9th.
Milwaukee logged 7 100+ MPH exit velocities and four of them knocked in runs. Meanwhile the Giants hitters continue to get the smallest return possible from their best contact. They launched 7 homers during the four-game series in San Diego and six of them were solo shots. Add on the three one-offs they hit in Milwaukee, and the Giants are averaging two homers a game so far on this road trip, and they’ve still managed to lose four of the five.
Their three homers were the only hits the San Francisco line-up managed against Milwaukee arms for 8.2 innings on Friday. A HBP and two walks loaded the bases in the 6th with two outs, but Shelby Miller fanned Jung Hoo Lee with a devastating fastball-splitter combo to escape the jam. Before the 9th, the Giants had been hitless in their only at-bat (2 PA) with runner(s) in scoring position.
It’s not like the Brewers bats soared above the Giants in this regard, going just 2-for-8 in the same situation. A seemingly insignificant difference that produced a world of difference. Make the little things big — this is the Brewers way. Sal Frelick’s double in the 4th off starter Carson Whisenhunt helped erase San Francisco’s initial 2-run lead (though an uncharacteristic base-running gaffe nipped the rally in the bud). Contreras’s double in the 7th off Joey Lucchesi gave the Brewers’ their first lead of the night. Both hits went for extra bases, both scored runs, both set up successive runs, and both capitalized on walks and infield hits.
Meanwhile, starter Jose Quintana and Miller threw a party together for the Giants on the base paths in the 6th, and nobody showed up. Dom Smith’s single in the 9th advanced Luis Matos to third thanks mostly to a friendly carom off closer Tyler Megill’s massive frame.
Single game results that we’ve seen time and time again over the past three months. The Giants went yard in San Diego but were done-in by going 2-for-18 with RISP. Going into Friday, the Brewers’ .289 with RISP was the best in baseball, their .793 OPS ranked fourth, while their 18.3 K% was the third lowest in the league with overall 121 wRC+ (2nd).The Giants in comparison: .239 BA (28th), .702 OPS (22nd), 22.6 K% (8th highest), 94 (21st).
And don’t forget these numbers are inflated by early success.
Since May 24th — when Milwaukee was two games below .500 and 6.5 games out of first in the Central and the Giants were 9 games over .500 and two games out of first in the West — San Francisco’s has posted a 73 wRC+ with runners in scoring position, the worst in the league by a wide margin. The Brewers 138 wRC+ on the other hand looks down on the rest of the National League. No wonder they’ve gone 55-21 in that time, putting together the best record in baseball while the Giants, 31-46 record, has taken them on…a different path.
To be fair to Giants hitters, the only ball safe from a Milwaukee mitt was a ball that left the park. There were at least five balls in play Friday night that would’ve fallen safely for hits against a less adept defensive opponent. Line drives were speared by leaping infielders at short and first. A double turned into an out with a controlled lunge into the wall in left. A pair of singles were chased down in no man’s land by second baseman Brice Turang.
After that kind of gold glove display, you become numb and indifferent to anything off the bat. A hard liner, a bloop — they’re all just outs in Milwaukee. I wholly expected centerfielder Brandon Lockridge to track down Matos’s 2-out flare in the 9th, because why would you expect anything different with the way things have been going? Of course, the final out is recorded with a web gem. Shockingly Lockridge came up short. The ball bounced past his sprawled body, allowing Matos to reach second and subsequently tie the game on Smith’s single and Megill’s fastball in the dirt.
If Lee had done what Lockridge had done and come up short on a sinking liner, allowing the tying run to advance into scoring position, the Giants bullpen would’ve unraveled. Not only would they have lost the lead, but they would’ve handed it over to the opposing team, and then have no response on offense. If it were the Giants, that ill-advised dive would’ve set them careening off the rails. It would’ve cost them the game.
But this is the Brewers we’re talking about. Risks aren’t risks at all when you’re on a three-month victory bender, they’re just more opportunities for magic. Mistakes aren’t mistakes either, but plot points to set the scene for later game dramatics. Take Contreras bizarrely lackadaisical throw down when Matos stole second in the 7th. The baseball sailed waaaay wide of the Andruw Monasterio and into centerfield, coaxing him to break for third where he was tagged out.
A moment of hesitation, a slide that turned out to be more a drag…this is what the Giants, and everybody else, are up against. They have to stress perfection while Brewers stroll merrily along. Contreras’s throw wasn’t an error, it was a delayed assist.
Put on a Brewers’ uniform and you got a prevailing wind at your back. Luck, sure. But there’s something else going on too. There’s a will, a drive, a belief in the inevitability of come-backs and clutch hits. They sweat these vibes like Gatorade. We know this mojo distinctly — once upon a time (loooonnnng ago), the Giants had it too.