Today was a matchup of two of the early 2020s biggest pitching stars, a former Cy Young Award winner versus a two-time All-Star and top-five Cy Young finisher. But it was the elder Brandon Woodruff who got the best of an uncharacteristically wild Sandy Alcantara today, and Brice Turang reached base four times, homered, and knocked in three runs to lead the Brewers to a comfortable 5-2 victory.<\/p>\n
On Alcantara\u2019s second pitch of the game, Sal Frelick hit a well-placed soft line drive to shortstop that was fielded on a bounce by Otto Lopez, who could not get it to first base in time to beat the speedy Frelick. But Frelick was followed by two Brewers who made solid contact, but weren\u2019t as lucky with their placement: William Contreras hit a 101 mph fly ball to center, which was caught, and Brice Turang hit a hard ground ball up the middle, straight at Lopez, who was positioned to easily turn a double play.<\/p>\n
The Marlins were aggressive against Woodruff in the bottom of the first, and made some decent contact, but had nothing to show for it: Woodruff needed just nine pitches to retire Jakob Marsee, Xavier Edwards, and Agust\u00edn Ram\u00edrez.<\/p>\n
Alcantara struck out Gary S\u00e1nchez and got a groundout from Jake Bauers to start the second, but with two outs Luis Rengifo lined a double into the left-field corner\u2014in a bizarre statistical quirk, that gave Rengifo six doubles out of only nine total hits on the season. Garrett Mitchell followed with a walk, but Brandon Lockridge grounded out to end the inning and the Brewers couldn\u2019t quite come through on the two-out rally. They did, however, make the ultra-efficient Alcantara throw 22 pitches in the second inning.<\/p>\n
Woodruff got ahead of Liam Hicks to start the bottom of the second, but couldn\u2019t put him away, and Hicks ended up at first with an infield hit when Ortiz was able to dive and stop a ground ball but was unable to make a throw. Ortiz made a nice play on the next batter, when Lopez hit a chopper to short that Ortiz threw him out on (with the aid of a nice pick from Bauers). Connor Norby, though, came through with a clean ground-ball single up the middle, which scored Hicks from second. Neither of Miami\u2019s hits was hit all that hard, but they were hit in the right spots. Woodruff got the last two outs with a couple of fly balls to keep the deficit at one.<\/p>\n
Ortiz drew a leadoff walk in the third, and after a Frelick fly out, Alcantara walked Contreras and Turang, too\u2014an unusual bout of wildness for Alcantara, who came in with just six walks in 30 1\/3 innings. The three walks loaded the bases for S\u00e1nchez, but unfortunately this was a meeting of skillsets that did not work in the Brewers\u2019 favor: Alcantara, who gets a lot of double plays, got a ground ball from S\u00e1nchez, who probably would\u2019ve beaten the throw to first if he were anyone else on the Brewers. But he is Gary S\u00e1nchez, and beating double play relays is not his strong suit, and the Brewers were unable to answer the Marlins\u2019 opening run.<\/p>\n
Like Alcantara, Woodruff also walked the number-nine hitter to start the bottom of the inning, in this case Javier Sanoja. Marsee did Woodruff a favor by flying out on the first pitch he saw, and Edwards burned the Marlins\u2019 second ABS challenge in the process of striking out. Ram\u00edrez worked back from 0-2 to 3-2 but grounded out to short to end the inning.<\/p>\n
Bauers led off the fourth with a fly ball to the warning track in left, but it didn\u2019t have quite enough juice to get out. Rengifo drew a one-out walk, Alcantara\u2019s fifth of the game, and he advanced to second on a groundout from Mitchell. Lockridge fell behind 0-2, but fouled off three 0-2 pitches before lining an RBI single into center that tied the game. Lockridge continued his good inning with a steal of second with Ortiz at the plate, but Ortiz popped out to end the inning. Still, tie game.<\/p>\n
Hicks picked up a single with a soft line drive to center on a 1-2 pitch to start the bottom of the fourth. Some defensive confusion followed: Lopez hit a ground ball to Bauers, who started a throw to second, but changed his mind. Bauers instead turned and tossed to Woodruff, who seemed to think that Bauers had thrown it to second, and he wasn\u2019t looking, and the ball went by him. But the Marlins were confused, too, and Contreras, who backed up the play, was able to throw Hicks out at third. It was scored as an E3, with a fielder\u2019s choice at third. Norby followed and hit a ball hard to deep center, but it held up for Mitchell, who caught it on the warning track. Lopez tagged and advanced to third, but he was stranded there when Owen Caissie struck out looking (on a 95.7 mph fastball, his hardest of the game).<\/p>\n
The Brewers had the top of the order against Alcantara in the top of the fifth. Frelick popped out for the first out, and it looked like Contreras should\u2019ve grounded out, but Edwards, the second baseman, just missed the ball, and it trickled into center field and the hustling Brewer catcher made it into second base. It would have been a sort of tough play for Edwards, who moved quite a ways to get there, but it certainly looked like a play that should\u2019ve been made\u2014the official scorer, though, generously gave Contreras a double. Whether Contreras reached on an error or not didn\u2019t matter when, on the very next pitch, Turang blew up an Alcantara cutter right down the middle and hit it out over the wall in right-center. 3-1 Brewers.<\/p>\n
Alcantara walked his sixth batter, S\u00e1nchez, after the homer; that tied his career high for a single game, and matched the total number he\u2019d walked through his first four starts this season. S\u00e1nchez moved to second on a wild pitch, but Bauers popped out and Rengifo lined out to left (on a batted ball with a .770 xBA, credit to the Marlins\u2019 defensive positioning) and the inning ended.<\/p>\n
Woodruff retired Miami in order on three fly balls in the fifth. Alcantara\u2019s afternoon was over when he was relieved by Anthony Bender, but Miami\u2019s wildness was not. Mitchell drew his second walk to lead off the sixth and stole second to give the Brewers a prime chance to add on. Lockridge struck out, but with Ortiz at the plate Mitchell advanced to third on a wild pitch and then Ortiz drew his second walk, too. With runners on the corners, Miami brought its infield in, and Frelick hit a chopper to second. Lopez threw home, and Mitchell was called out at home, but Milwaukee challenged the call and it was overturned.<\/p>\n
Frelick was credited with an RBI fielder\u2019s choice, and the Brewers still had runners on first and second with just one out. Bender struck out Contreras for the second out, but Turang lined a single to center that scored Ortiz and made it 5-1. S\u00e1nchez was hit between the shoulder blades with a 97 mph sinker that got away from Bender, and that was his last pitch; with the bases loaded and Bauers up, Miami moved to Lake Bachar\u2014surprisingly, not a lefty. Bauers made hard contact on a hanging curveball, but lined out to left field and the inning ended.<\/p>\n
Woodruff was back out for the sixth and had only thrown 65 pitches. He worked quickly through the sixth, too, with a major assist from Lockridge, when a pop fly that looked like it was going to be a bloop hit ended up in the glove of the Brewer left fielder, who caught it on a full dive.<\/p>\n