The Milwaukee Brewers demolished the Philadelphia Phillies on Saturday afternoon, putting up a season-high 23 hits on their way to a dominant 17-7 victory (matching their season-high run total in a game which wasn’t even as close as the final score indicated—Philadelphia scored five in the ninth). The Brewers rocked Phillies starter Jesus Luzardo, who came in as one of the best pitchers in the National League this season, while Milwaukee’s Chad Patrick delivered another solid start to put down any thoughts of a Phillies comeback after they fell behind early.
Just as they did on Friday, the Brewer offense got off to an excellent start today, when Jackson Chourio hit a jam-shot single and stole second in front of a William Contreras walk. That brought up the scorching-hot Christian Yelich, and even against the lefty Luzardo, he went after the first pitch and knocked an RBI single to center field. Things got even better from there, though: Rhys Hoskins got a hold of a 2-1 fastball on the outer half and pulled it over the fence in left center for his eighth home run. Before an out had been recorded, Milwaukee was up 4-0 on one of the best pitchers in the National League—a pitcher who hadn’t allowed four runs in a single start all season.
Luzardo did recover to strike out Daz Cameron and get Sal Frelick and Caleb Durbin on groundouts. In the bottom of the first, Patrick gave up back-to-back one-out singles to Trea Turner and Kyle Schwarber, but he struck out Alec Bohm and got Nick Castellanos to ground out and he was through a somewhat stressful first inning.
In the top of the second, Joey Ortiz and Brice Turang struck out to start things but Chourio lined a double—his second hit in as many innings—into the left field corner. Contreras jumped on the first pitch and hit a sharp liner into left, but it may have been too fast at 107.4 mph, as Max Kepler came up throwing and nailed Chourio at the plate for the third out of the inning. It wasn’t a bad send with two outs, it was just a great throw by Kepler.
Patrick needed to burn some pitches in the second, but he got a 1-2-3 inning after a 10-pitch strikeout of Kepler and flyouts by J.T. Realmuto and Brandon Marsh. Yelich led off the third with another hit, a beautiful piece of hitting in which he sliced one down the line to the opposite field but not quite far enough into the corner to make it a double. But Hoskins struck out, and Cameron hit into a double play, and the Brewers could not add in the third.
Another three-up three-down inning came for Patrick in the bottom of the third. Some questionable Phillies defense buoyed the Brewers in the top of the fourth. Frelick got things started with a blooper that dropped when Castellanos, a bit of a statue in right field, couldn’t make the play, and Durbin followed with a bunt that Luzardo threw away, allowing Frelick to score from second (officially scored as a bunt single with an error that led to the run).
Controversy followed! Durbin was apparently picked off when he took off perhaps too early on a stolen base attempt, but it was deemed that Luzardo balked—it seemed pretty clear that he was going home before he changed his mind and threw to first. But Phillies manager Rob Thomson wasn’t pleased, and managed to get rung; maybe he just thought he’d prefer to watch TV instead of the rest of this game. In any case, Durbin was awarded second, and one pitch later Ortiz walked, and the Brewers were in business again with runners on first and second for Turang.
Turang also drew a walk, and the bases were juiced for Chourio, already 2-for-2 on the day—and he came through. Chourio didn’t make great contact but he knocked a hard grounder up the middle that deflected off the glove (face?) of a diving Bryson Stott and into center field. Two runs scored, giving the Brewers a 7-0 lead, and there still were no outs.
Milwaukee kept pouring it on. Contreras snuck a single into left on a pitch in on his hands that scored Turang and got Chourio to third. Yelich made the first out when he popped out in foul territory, but the Brewers put an exclamation point on things when Hoskins, on a very bad 0-2 pitch, blasted his second homer of the game to deep left. 11-0, Brewers.
Daz Cameron even got in on things with a double, as one started to feel bad for Luzardo, who the Phillies seemed determined to sacrifice. Finally the Phillies pulled him; his replacement was our old friend Joe Ross. Ross couldn’t do Luzardo a favor, though, as Frelick knocked an RBI single to close Luzardo’s book with 12 earned runs in 3 1⁄3 innings. Luzardo had allowed only 16 earned runs in 11 starts this season coming into today.
Philadelphia got on the board in the bottom of the fourth after Patrick, who had to sit for a long time during that eight-run fourth inning, allowed a one-out solo homer to Alec Bohm. But that was all, as rain started falling at Citizens Bank Park.
Contreras picked up a two-out double in the top of the fifth, as the Brewers again capitalized on “Nick Castellanos, right fielder.” That gave Yelich a chance with a runner in scoring position, but he struck out and the inning ended. Patrick had another quick, easy inning in the bottom of the fifth, when he needed just 11 pitches to retire the side in order.
Against new pitcher José Ruiz, Cameron got a one-out single in the top of the sixth (with his second hit, he had doubled his season hit total) and after Frelick flew out, Durbin, Ortiz, and Turang got back-to-back-to-back two-out singles, scoring two more runs. With two outs in the sixth, the Brewers had 18 hits, their biggest total of the season. But that wasn’t where the inning ended: Chourio jumped on one and crushed it out to left for a three-run homer, and the Brewers took a 17-1 lead. Their 17 runs through six innings were one more than they scored in the first seven games of the month combined.
The Phillies cut the lead to a mere 15 when Schwarber knocked in Stott with a one-out double in the bottom of the sixth. That led to a visit from Chris Hook, as the Brewers were hoping to get Patrick through six; Bohm flew out deep in the left field gap and pinch hitter Johan Rojas struck out, and Patrick’s afternoon was finished. He had another very nice start, with a final line of six innings, five hits, no walks, six strikeouts, and two runs on 94 pitches.
Lefty Tanner Banks was the new Philadelphia pitcher in the seventh, and Yelich greeted him by lining another beauty of a single to left field, his third hit of the game off of a left-handed pitcher. Cameron picked up his third hit with a one-out single, but the Brewers didn’t manage to add any more in the inning.
Rob Zastryzny, who for much of the day was expected to be an opener today, pitched the seventh. Milwaukee also made a couple of defensive changes, with Eric Haase replacing Contreras behind the plate and Isaac Collins joining the outfield in left, with Chourio going to the bench (he was a triple from a cycle and due up in the eighth, this move was lame), Frelick to center, and Cameron to right. Zastryzny had no trouble against a Phillies lineup that just sort of looked like they wanted to go home, as he got Kepler to fly out and struck out Rafael Marchán and Marsh.
Outfielder Weston Wilson came on for his second career pitching appearance in the top of the eighth, and he started against Andruw Monasterio (who replaced Ortiz defensively in the sixth), who lined out to third base. Wilson mostly relied on his off-speed stuff to work around a two-out Turang single, and the Brewers were held scoreless in the eighth.
Grant Anderson put up a quick zero in the bottom of the eighth. Wilson went out for a second inning in the ninth. Yelich led off with his fourth single but Wilson got the next three. Tyler Alexander struggled for Milwaukee in the ninth—he allowed a double, single, triple, and infield single (he should have been out, but Alexander lost the race to the bag) to the first four batters he faced, which scored three Phillies runs. Milwaukee finally got the first out when Marchán flew out to right, but Marsh hit a two-run homer. Thank heavens for 15-run leads, as Marsh’s homer and the five runs in the inning had cut the lead to just 17-7. Alexander settled after that and got the final two outs, and the game ended with that scoreline.
This was an awakening for the Brewers’ offense, an utter destruction of a good pitcher. Some offensive standouts included Chourio (4-for-5, three runs, a homer, five RBI), Contreras (3-for-4, a double, two runs, an RBI, a walk), Yelich (4-for-6, a run scored, an RBI), Hoskins (2-for-6, two homers, six RBI), and Cameron (3-for-6, a double, two runs). Frelick and Durbin also had multiple hits, and every starter in the lineup had at least one hit and at least one run scored.
The win secures a series victory and their sixth straight victory gives the Brewers a winning record (15-13) in the month of May, something that felt like an impossibility when they dropped to 5-10 in the month on May 17th in the midst of a heavy offensive slump. They’ll go for the road sweep tomorrow at 12:35 p.m. central time.