Chad Patrick probably wasn’t going to keep up his pace this season—through his first 13 career appearances, he hadn’t given up more than three earned runs in a single outing. That streak was bound to end, and it did today. Unluckily for Patrick, that happened on a day in which the Brewer offense looked mostly helpless against Atlanta starter Spencer Schwellenbach, who did a rare thing: he threw a complete game.
It was the Brewers defense that got this game started with a bang. Atlanta’s first batter, Ronald Acuña Jr., was retired on a fly ball in foul territory on a beautiful sliding catch made by Sal Frelick, who slid right into the padded right field wall. Austin Riley singled with two out, but Patrick worked around it, and the Brewers had a zero in the first.
In the bottom of the inning, Milwaukee had a golden opportunity to score when Jackson Chourio lined a triple into the right field corner with one out. But on the next pitch, Chourio broke for home on a Contreras grounder to third, and he was a sitting duck at the plate. The scoring opportunity passed.
The Brewers would rue that missed scoring opportunity when the Braves put together a two-out rally in the top of the second. Patrick started the inning with a walk of Marcell Ozuna, and after a strikeout of Ozzie Albies, Michael Harris II made the Brewers pay with a two-run homer to right. After Eli White grounded out, it looked like Patrick would escape the inning with no further damage, but Patrick walked the number nine hitter, Nick Allen, with Acuña on deck. Acuña took advantage of the opportunity by lining a single to left, and Drake Baldwin followed that with an RBI single to make it 3-0. Patrick struck out Riley to end the inning, but the Braves had an early lead.
Milwaukee did get one of those right back, when Rhys Hoskins led off the bottom of the second with a homer to left, his 10th of the season. The Brewers went quickly after that homer, but they’d trimmed the Atlanta lead.
Ozuna reached again with a one-out single in the top of the third, but he struck out Albies and Harris to end the inning. But the Brewers went even easier in the third, with strikeouts from Eric Haase and Brice Turang and a first-pitch groundout from Chourio.
Frelick made another nice catch in nearly the same spot as the one in the first inning to start the fourth. But Allen lined a single to right, and then Acuña ambushed the first pitch he got and hit it over the Brewer bullpen for a two-run homer. It was officially Patrick’s worst start as a pro, and the Braves had a 5-1 lead.
The Brewers hadn’t scored five runs in a game in a week, so a comeback seemed somewhat unlikely in this one, but did they have an answer?
Not in the fourth, at least. Contreras struck out, Bauers grounded out, and Hoskins flew out to the warning track.
Patrick started the fifth with a walk of Matt Olson, Patrick’s third walk and tenth baserunner of the game. After a strikeout of Ozuna, he could have been out of the inning when Albies lined a ball right at him that he knocked down and threw to second, trying to start a double play. But the throw was errant, and everyone was safe—it was officially scored a fielder’s choice and a throwing error. With Nick Mears ready in the bullpen, Milwaukee chose to let Patrick try to work out of the two-on, one-out jam, and work out of it he did, with strikeouts of Albies and Harris to end the inning.
Milwaukee’s offense, though, needed to get going, and they did not in the bottom of the fifth, as Frelick, Durbin, and Ortiz again went down meekly against Schwellenbach. Mears replaced Patrick in the top of the sixth, and looked good in a 1-2-3 inning.
In the bottom of the sixth, Turang blooped a single into left with one out to end a run of 13 straight outs after the Hoskins homer. But Chourio followed with a broken bat grounder up the middle that set up about as easy a double play as you will find, and the game headed to the seventh still 5-1.
Easton McGee was on for the Brewers in the top of the seventh, a perhaps ominous sign that the 27-year-old right-hander might be on the chopping block when the team needs a roster spot for Jacob Misiorowski tomorrow. McGee walked Riley and gave up a single to Olson to get things started; he almost got out of things when Ozuna grounded into a double play, but Albies came through with a two-out RBI single to extend Atlanta’s lead to 6-1.
Schwellenbach, meanwhile, seemed to get better as the game went along. In the seventh, he struck out Contreras and Hoskins and got Bauers on a fly ball to center. After McGee pitched a scoreless eighth, Schwellenbach did surrender a second run when Haase hit a two-out double that scored Frelick, who’d led off the inning with a single. But Schwellenbach’s pitch count was still in pretty good shape, and after McGee pitched his third inning (a scoreless ninth), Schwellenbach was back out to complete the game. He did so: his final line was nine innings pitched, two earned runs, five hits, no walks, and nine strikeouts.
The Brewers’ offense has again fallen into a troubling slump, as they’ve scored just eleven runs in their last six games combined (an average of 1.8 per game). The loss to Atlanta marks a second straight 1-2 series loss, and they’re now 5-5 in June.
Milwaukee will look to put this one behind them as they start a four-game series with the division rival St. Louis Cardinals at American Family Field tomorrow. That game, of course, will be Misiorowski’s debut. Don’t miss it.