Brewers offense ties season high in runs, but leash on left-hander DL Hall might be shortening after another subpar start

ST. LOUIS -- Make no mistake about it: Saturday felt pretty darn good to the Milwaukee Brewers.

Swinging the bats from start to finish, they racked up a season-high 18 hits and tied a season high in runs with a 12-5 victory over the St. Louis Cardinals at Busch Stadium.

Rhys Hoskins, Brice Turang and Jackson Chourio all went deep, William Contreras had three more hits to raise his season average to .372 and every starting position player except for Oliver Dunn had two hits as the Brewers clinched their fifth series victory already this season.

"On the road, in the division, right?" said Hoskins. "Especially to start a season series with a team and to punch first, so to say, is always a good sign. Whether or not we end up sweeping these guys tomorrow remains to be seen, but just to come in here and grab two wins right away and win a series should do a lot for our confidence.

"We'll see what we've got tomorrow, but I think we're feeling pretty good about how today went."

The victory was Milwaukee's fifth straight at Busch Stadium and the team's seventh in its last eight against St. Louis overall.

The Brewers are also a major-league best 9-2 on the road, 8-2 in day games and finished the day having hit a National League-best 27 homers. Only the Baltimore Orioles (31) and Boston Red Sox (28) had gone deep more in the majors.

Contreras, meanwhile, finished the game tied with Shohei Ohtani for the major-league lead with 10 multi-hit games. He's also hit safely in 14 of his last 15.

How long is the leash with DL Hall?

After Saturday, Hall's first four starts with the Brewers have been four, 5 ⅓, 3 ⅓ and 3 ⅔ innings -- certainly not what either team or player were expecting when the left-hander was named No. 2 starter behind Freddy Peralta coming out of spring training.

Not all of Hall's troubles in this one were his doing; Sal Frelick missing the cutoff man on a throw in from left field in the second inning led directly to Hall throwing 17 additional pitches and the Cardinals taking the lead at 4-2 instead of only tying the game at 2-2.

But overall, many of the same issues that had dogged Hall coming into the game remained issues, with a lack of command (career-high five walks) at the top of the list.

Hall threw 90 pitches (also a career high) and in the fourth inning registered just his second 1-2-3 frame of the season in 16 ⅓ innings.

To this point, Hall is 0-1 with a 7.71 ERA, WHIP of 2.27 and 13 strikeouts. Opposing batters are hitting him at a .380 clip, and he topped out at just 92.9 mph with his four-seamer against the Cardinals.

Milwaukee is certainly on shaky ground with regard to its starting pitching due to injuries both at the major- and minor-league level, so options beyond Hall are limited.

Even still, manager Pat Murphy was asked if the team could be looking at a change.

"There's got to be adjustments," Murphy said. "We're not just going to keep rolling out the ball, throw 3 1/3 and say that's fine. It's not acceptable.

"But, he's a young kid."

To that end, Murphy said he and the coaching staff have seen progress from Hall in between starts.

"He had a good week of work, and that's really important," he said. "You guys don't get to see it. It wasn't reflected today. He works quick and he's attacking, but I wonder what his internal clock is doing (in games). I think that's the one (area) that's got to get slowed down.

"But we'll get to the bottom of it. Spend some time with him here either later today or tomorrow and hopefully grab some of the positives out of this and let him know some of the adjustments that have to be made. There were a couple positive things, that's for sure.

"We believe in the kid. So, whatever we end up doing with him, it's going to be in his best interest."

Hall, who was electric as a reliever with the Orioles prior to being traded to the Brewers in the Corbin Burnes deal, admitted there's been a big learning curve as he's navigated the move to starting.

"I want to say yes," he said when asked if he felt he was close to breaking through. "The work in between has tightened up so much this year. I think that my routine and all the work I'm putting in is light years ahead of what I've done in the past.

"So, I'm just going to keep believing in that work in between and hopefully the results will follow soon."

Jackson Chourio flashes his overall game

Chourio was going through it a bit at the plate coming into Saturday, and after a strikeout in his first at-bat he'd dropped into an 0-for-15 slump.

One swing of the bat changed that as he followed Turang's two-run shot with a solo blast of his own to right, giving the Brewers their first back-to-back blasts of 2024.

But Chourio wasn't done there, as he drew walks in the sixth and seventh innings and then singled in the ninth.

He turned into a one-man rally with his second walk as he stole second and then scored on a throwing error as Milwaukee continued to tack onto its lead.

Chourio's final line included four times on base, three runs scored and two hits to go along with the homer and stolen base.

For the season, he's hitting .235 with four homers (tied for second on the team), 13 RBI (second on the team), a .719 OPS and four stolen bases (second on the team).

His 22 strikeouts, meanwhile, lead the Brewers.

"He's going to go up and down," Murphy said, referring to Chourio's performance. "But he's got to stay in the (strike) zone. He's got such good hands. He's got to be able to make that pitcher throw him strikes instead of chasing after it.

"He was great today."

Said Chourio, who at 20 years and 40 days old became the fourth-youngest player since 1900 with at least four homers in his first 17 games: "Every day I'm going out there to play as hard as I can and demonstrate my abilities. I'm just happy with the way the results happened today."

This article originally appeared on Milwaukee Journal Sentinel: Brewers' leash on DL Hall might be shortening a bit after subpar start