Burnes and Woodruff can get the Brewers to the playoffs — if the offense can score a few runs

Well, so much for that.

What started as an afternoon full of potential inside American Family Field, with three first-inning strikeouts from Brandon Woodruff in his first start in four months and a standing ovation as he walked off the mound, ended with a whimper.

The Pittsburgh Pirates snatched a 4-1 win over the Brewers on Sunday to split the series, one which Milwaukee direly could have used to create some separation in the division standings.

Here are three takeaways from the loss.

Brandon Woodruff didn't miss a beat

It sure didn’t look like Woodruff missed four months. His fastballs were angry. His slider had bite. He didn’t fall behind many hitters and walked none.

Aside from a pair of swings that resulted in wall-scraping home runs – Endy Rodriguez hooked a four-seamer into the picnic area in right field in the third and Connor Joe popped a slider up down the left field line that cleared the fence despite having an expected batting average of .060 – Woodruff was crisp.

Woodruff threw 84 pitches over five innings, allowing two runs on the solo homers and four hits while striking out nine.

“A good first step for Woody for sure,” Brewers manager Craig Counsell said. “There’s a lot to be happy about there. It probably wasn’t mid-season form with some small things, but he felt good, got good results and we’ll keep moving forward.”

He struck out the first five Pirates hitters he saw. With the first, a swinging punch out of Josh Palacios, Woodruff reminded himself that he hadn’t lost that powerful fastball of his.

“Obviously don’t want to give up a couple homers there but that was just making mistakes in the middle of the plate which at this level if you do that, that’s what can happen,” Woodruff said. “Other than that, I didn’t really know how today would go. I just tried to control myself, try to breathe a little bit and try to make pitches. For the most part it was pretty good. I didn’t have anything in mind. I just wanted to win.”

Despite the loss, Woodruff soaked up what wound up being a wide range of emotions for him.

"Honestly today was more emotional than I thought it was going to be," Woodruff said. "I think I did a good job of holding it in internally. When you haven’t pitched here in four months, you miss it. You miss going out and competing with all these guys and kind of being in the middle of things. Now we’re getting down to the last two months of baseball and the division race is still tight and this is the fun part.

"I couldn’t really sleep this morning. I woke up a few times. More excited than anything. Like everybody else, I get nervous and anxious. Just ready to get out here and pitch, just ready to get out on the field and feel the stadium, the crowd and then get out on the mound. I was glad I was able to do that and have a successful day."

How Woodruff’s return shapes up the rotation for the rest of the year

When asked postgame about what a healthy starting rotation does for the Brewers, Woodruff prefaced his answer.

“I’m not saying I’m any saving grace or anything,” Woodruff said.

But... he might just be.

For a team built around its pitching, the upgrade from having a depth starter rounding out the rotation to a bona fide star in Woodruff is worth an upgrade of anywhere from one to two runs a game on average. That’s significant, especially considering the number of close games the Brewers play.

“It’s nice to finally have a full, healthy rotation,” Woodruff continued. “Everybody in the rotation has been doing great. That’s why we’ve been able to hold this thing together… We’ve got a good team.”

It’s not difficult to see why the Brewers are hopeful about the final 50 games of the season considering that, just hours before Woodruff toed the slab at American Family Field, Corbin Burnes did the same.

The Brewers have not had their pair of aces in the rotation together almost all season. Now, they can line up Burnes and Woodruff, as well as Freddy Peralta, Wade Miley and Adrian Houser, through the stretch run if all goes according to plan.

That’s a big deal.

“We’re as close to the rotation that we probably set out for in the off-season as we’ve been at any point since the first 2 weeks of the year,” Counsell said. “That’s a good sign. We know what Woody’s accomplished, so adding an arm like that every fifth day is significant.”

The offense spoiled what could have been an uplifting day

On one hand, you can’t fault William Contreras for rounding second base and trying to leg out a triple in the bottom of the sixth inning. The Brewers are, more often than not, aggressive on the basepaths and he saw an opportunity to catch the Pirates defense off-guard.

On the other hand, it brought the Brewers’ one potentially rally with the game still within range Sunday to a deflating end.

By depositing a pitch from Pirates starting pitcher Johan Oviedo with two outs in the sixth inning into the gap between left fielder Josh Palacios and center fielder Jack Suwinski, Contreras had already done the hard part.

He had gotten on base.

It was the Brewers’ first hit in 17 plate appearances dating back to Contreras’ single on the second at-bat of the game.

The ball was kicked around a bit by the Pirates outfielders, which gave Contreras the idea that he could take third, but that notion was ill-conceived. The relay throw from shortstop Liover Peguero beat Contreras to third by 10 to 15 feet and only a deft slide made it a close play – close enough actually for the Brewers to challenge the out call on the field, which stood upon review.

Contreras was trying to make something, anything, happen for an offense in need of a spark but, coincidentally, in doing so thwarted the only real chance Milwaukee had up until that point.

“Losing, it’s never good to make that out,” Counsell said “But it was a close play and like we talked about last night, base running is a risk and we got thrown out.”

Contreras’ decision was far from what cost the Brewers the game; it just stood out because of the rest of the offense’s afternoon doldrums.

Oviedo was in complete command through seven scoreless innings. The Brewers scratched across the two Contreras hits and two walks against him and that was it. They had two at-bats with a runner in scoring position and struck out in both. After a first inning featuring some hard contact, Milwaukee had as many fly outs to the catcher as it did the entire outfield.

“I thought as the game got going, the fastball and the off-speed, he just made a ton of pitches,” Counsell said. “The off-speed was really good and he got us off his fastball and he made the pitch mix really good. The location was really good.”

A near goose-egg – a throwing error to score on a run on what would have been the game’s final out spared the Brewers from being shut out – spoiled what could have been an uplifting win in Woodruff’s return.

“I think the other guys did a good job and that makes it tough on our bats,” Counsell said.

In the big picture, the Brewers are still in a good spot. They remain in first place by 1 ½ games over the Reds, who were just swept by the Nationals at home, and the surging Cubs. Some of the wild-card contending teams, namely the Marlins and Diamondbacks, aren’t exactly playing winning baseball, either.

With a rotation featuring a healthy Burnes, Woodruff and Peralta, Milwaukee would tell you this is exactly where it wants to be.

And the truth is, the Brewers probably should make the playoffs taking all this into consideration.

But it’s going to come down to the offense, the unit that has scored the third-fewest runs in the National League this year, doing more.

When Woodruff is rolling like he was Sunday or Burnes is like he was Saturday night, outfielder Sal Frelick noted following the series finale, they don’t need to score many runs. But they do need to score some.

“It stinks,” Frelick said. “So frustrating because you see the guys going out there and busting their butt like Woody was today, like Corbin was yesterday and you want to go put up four, five, six runs for them so they can get comfy and you can give them a win. It’s definitely frustrating.”

This article originally appeared on Milwaukee Journal Sentinel: Healthy Burnes and Woodruff can get Brewers to the playoffs