{"id":589185,"date":"2026-02-23T23:37:12","date_gmt":"2026-02-23T23:37:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/589185\/"},"modified":"2026-02-23T23:37:12","modified_gmt":"2026-02-23T23:37:12","slug":"late-collapse-costs-brewers-first-spring-win-ortiz-shines","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/589185\/","title":{"rendered":"Late collapse costs Brewers first spring win; Ortiz shines"},"content":{"rendered":"<p class=\"duet--article--dangerously-set-cms-markup duet--article--standard-paragraph _1nfb3k4i _16w9vov1 _16w9vov0 ls9zuh1\">The Milwaukee Brewers looked well on their way to picking up their first Cactus League win this afternoon when a late bullpen collapse by players you\u2019ve probably never heard of meant another day with a zero in the win column for the Brewers.<\/p>\n<p class=\"duet--article--dangerously-set-cms-markup duet--article--standard-paragraph _1nfb3k4i _16w9vov1 _16w9vov0 ls9zuh1\">Of course, winners and losers in the Cactus League don\u2019t really matter at all, so who did what?<\/p>\n<p class=\"duet--article--dangerously-set-cms-markup duet--article--standard-paragraph _1nfb3k4i _16w9vov1 _16w9vov0 ls9zuh1\">Milwaukee jumped out to an early lead in this one when, following a Joey Ortiz single (the hardest-hit ball of the game, according to Statcast, at 109.1 mph), Andrew Vaughn hit a one-out bomb to put the Brewers up 2-0.<\/p>\n<p class=\"duet--article--dangerously-set-cms-markup duet--article--standard-paragraph _1nfb3k4i _16w9vov1 _16w9vov0 ls9zuh1\">The Brewers kept the pressure on San Diego starter JP Sears after that. Gary S\u00e1nchez was hit by a pitch and Brandon Lockridge singled to put two more on base with still just the one out. A David Hamilton fielder\u2019s choice led to the second out, but with two outs one of the new faces on the Brewers, Jett Williams, showed off one of his gifts\u2014speed\u2014with a two-run triple:<\/p>\n<p class=\"duet--article--dangerously-set-cms-markup duet--article--standard-paragraph _1nfb3k4i _16w9vov1 _16w9vov0 ls9zuh1\">Easton McGee and Abner Uribe both had nice early-inning appearances for the Brewers; Uribe gave up a bloop single to Ty France but otherwise neither pitcher allowed anything and they both struck out two batters. Craig Yoho pitched a scoreless third, though he didn\u2019t strike anybody out.<\/p>\n<p class=\"duet--article--dangerously-set-cms-markup duet--article--standard-paragraph _1nfb3k4i _16w9vov1 _16w9vov0 ls9zuh1\">The first two Brewers of the fourth inning were retired on calls that went to ABS challenges: the Padres successfully challenged a 3-2 pitch on Williams that was initially called a ball, and the next batter, Luis Lara, unsuccessfully challenged a called third strike.<\/p>\n<p class=\"duet--article--dangerously-set-cms-markup duet--article--standard-paragraph _1nfb3k4i _16w9vov1 _16w9vov0 ls9zuh1\">The Padres got on the board in the fourth when Miguel Andujar hit a two-out solo homer off of Drew Rom, and the Brewers added one in the seventh when Lockridge\u2014Brandon Lockridge!\u2014hit his second homer of the spring.<\/p>\n<p class=\"duet--article--dangerously-set-cms-markup duet--article--standard-paragraph _1nfb3k4i _16w9vov1 _16w9vov0 ls9zuh1\">That made it 5-1, and it looked like the game might end there, but bottom of the eighth, things went sideways. Pitcher Bjorn Johnson entered the game walked the first batter, got a pop-out, gave up a single, walked another guy, gave up a bases-loaded double, and walked another guy before getting pulled. Joshua Quezada replaced Johnson, gave up a single, balked, and gave up another single, and the Padres had six runs in with only one out. Thankfully, a double play ended the inning after that, but San Diego was up 7-5 heading into the ninth. Johnson\u2019s line was a little scary: two hits, three walks, and five earned runs in 1\/3 of an inning, which equates to an ERA of 135, if you\u2019re curious.<\/p>\n<p class=\"duet--article--dangerously-set-cms-markup duet--article--standard-paragraph _1nfb3k4i _16w9vov1 _16w9vov0 ls9zuh1\">Milwaukee got a couple of two-out baserunners in the ninth when Dylan O\u2019Rae singled and Jes\u00fas Made walked; they both stole their way into scoring position, but a strikeout of Jordyn Adams ended things there, which I\u2019m sure the players didn\u2019t mind.<\/p>\n<p class=\"duet--article--dangerously-set-cms-markup duet--article--standard-paragraph _1nfb3k4i _16w9vov1 _16w9vov0 ls9zuh1\">Ortiz was a notable bright spot. In addition to the single he stung in the first inning, he hit a strong double in the fifth (at 107.2 mph, it was the third-hardest-hit ball of the day), and in the third he made this nifty play:<\/p>\n<p class=\"duet--article--dangerously-set-cms-markup duet--article--standard-paragraph _1nfb3k4i _16w9vov1 _16w9vov0 ls9zuh1\">For those who spent large parts of last season concerned about Jackson Chourio\u2019s plate discipline, he took two more walks today. We\u2019ve already covered all the extra-base hits, but among the interesting prospects, Lara and Brock Wilken also hit singles. In addition to McGee, Uribe, and Yoho, the Brewers also got scoreless innings from Jacob Waguespack, Ethan Dorchies, and Wande Torres, though only Waguespack managed a three-up, three-down inning.<\/p>\n<p class=\"duet--article--dangerously-set-cms-markup duet--article--standard-paragraph _1nfb3k4i _16w9vov1 _16w9vov0 ls9zuh1\">The 0-4 Brewers will take another shot at picking up their first win tomorrow afternoon at 2:05 p.m. central time when they take on the Athletics in Oakland Sacramento Kansas City Philadelphia Mesa.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The Milwaukee Brewers looked well on their way to picking up their first Cactus League win this afternoon&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":589186,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2401],"tags":[5,136,843,59,3527,4280,4],"class_list":{"0":"post-589185","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-milwaukee-brewers","8":"tag-baseball","9":"tag-brewers","10":"tag-milwaukee","11":"tag-milwaukee-brewers","12":"tag-milwaukee-brewers-scores-standings","13":"tag-milwaukeebrewers","14":"tag-mlb"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@mlb\/116122579938333363","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/589185","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=589185"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/589185\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/589186"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=589185"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=589185"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=589185"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}