Cubs' ninth inning was a nightmare for the Brewers, from bad luck to bad defense

The Milwaukee Brewers have been staying afloat much of this season thanks in large part due to their ability to scratch out close wins.

At this point last week, the Brewers were a league-best 14-4 in one-run games. Since then?

They haven't done what they need to in order to win those games.

Matt Bush imploded in the ninth inning in Pittsburgh on Friday. Risky decisions to send runners home in extra innings proved to be incorrect and lost the game Tuesday. Some bad batted-ball luck and a disaster of a defensive play in the ninth lost it Wednesday.

Devin Williams blew a save as the Chicago Cubs erased a 3-1 deficit in the ninth inning to beat the Brewers, 4-3, Wednesday at American Family Field in what was undoubtedly one of the roughest losses of the year for the Crew.

With a focus on the nightmare that was that final inning, here are three takeaways from the loss.

Brian Anderson takes ownership for costly error, but there was also a pick that was not made

With two outs in the top of the ninth and the game tied, Brian Anderson had a ball hit to him that was no different from any other routine grounder he’s gotten over his years in baseball.

He gloved the ball off Nico Hoerner’s bat cleanly. He set his feet. He didn’t rush the throw.

But…

“I just didn’t make a good throw,” Anderson said.

The grounder should have gotten the Brewers to the bottom of the ninth inning still locked at 3-3 with the Cubs, but instead Anderson’s throw short-hopped first base, deflected away from first baseman Owen Miller and Mike Tauchman scored from second with the go-ahead run.

“That’s a play I’ve got to make 10 out of 10 times,” Anderson said.

The throw, though, still short-hopped to Miller’s glove. It was a scoop that major-league first basemen typically make.

But left without a natural first baseman by trade on the active roster with Rowdy Tellez, who is excellent at digging balls out of the dirt, going on the injured list earlier Wednesday and there being no corresponding move to promote a regular first baseman, such as Keston Hiura, Miller was making his eighth start at first this year.

“I haven’t seen the play,” Brewers manager Craig Counsell said of the hop to Miller. “I can’t give you a sure answer because I didn’t get a great angle on it. It looked like it short-hopped and he had a chance to get his glove on it and had his foot on the base. He just didn’t come up with it.”

Devin Williams frustrated by the events of the ninth

Williams summarized the ninth inning in which he blew his second save of the year thusly:

“Stuff was fine. Command was fine,” he said. “I was doing what I wanted to do. (Expletive) bloop hit to start the inning, struck out the next guy, jam shot or whatever that was to third. They hit one ball out of the infield that whole inning.”

His assessment wasn’t far off.

Cody Bellinger’s blooper technically did reach the outfield, giving the Cubs two balls out of the infield in the inning, but soft contact set up the entire rally for Chicago and the deciding hit was a routine ground ball.

Aside from the tying double from Tauchman, there were three batted balls in the inning that didn't result in outs for the Cubs against Williams. Their exit velocites: 69.2 mph, 58.4 mph and 75.1 mph.

Even the weak-contact grounder that Williams induced from Yan Gomes for the second out could have been an easy double play if it was hit right to a fielder. Instead, the runners moved up, allowing the tying run to score easily on Tauchman's hit.

“Yeah, I did everything I can do,” Williams said. “Just bad luck there.”

The one spot where Williams didn’t execute as he wanted to was against Tauchman. Williams got two swings-and-misses to get to 2-2 in the count but couldn’t put him away as Tauchman fouled off three pitches out of the zone.

Then Williams left a fastball up and out over the dish.

“It was an interesting at-bat,” Williams said. “It seemed like he was on a lot of pitches there, but I made a mistake there at the end and he put a good swing on it.”

After multiple stretches earlier in the season in which he rarely pitched, Williams has found himself thrust into action regularly over the last two weeks. He’s pitched seven of the last 11 days as the Brewers have played games decided by three or fewer runs all but once in that stretch.

“I’ve been grinding,” Williams said. “Doing my best to stay ready every day and try to get it done for the boys.”

Before everything fell apart, the Brewers offense had a good showing against Justin Steele

The Brewers had their work cut out for them in the batter’s box Wednesday.

Not only were they facing a left-hander – the very matchup that his given their offense fits this year – but it was also Major League Baseball’s ERA leader standing 60 feet 6 inches away.

Justin Steele entered with a 9-2 record and 2.43 ERA and had only allowed three earned runs over his last four starts. He’s headed to the All-Star Game next week, but in his final tuneup before Seattle, the Brewers were able to put some good swings on him.

Milwaukee’s nine hits were the second-most put up against Steele this year and it became just the fourth team in 16 starts to score at least three runs.

“I thought we did a nice job against him, absolutely,” Counsell said. “We were aggressive. He’s a good pitcher. He’s really good. Came out in the first and we were aggressive against him and we just missed a couple balls. I thought the base hits to score runs and to get the runners into position were nice pieces of hitting.

“Pleased. I thought we did a nice job.”

The 2023 version of Steele is similar to the one that the Brewers have seen for a couple of years.

Entering the day, Steele had a 2.23 ERA in 11 games and nine starts against the Crew; since the start of last season his ERA was 1.70 in seven starts.

Since snapping out of an 0 for 22 skid on Friday in Pittsburgh, Willy Adames has been in a bit of a groove at the plate.

He had hit safely in five straight, including four doubles, coming in and had the biggest swing of the night, going down to get a slider from Steele and launching it into the home bullpen in left-center to give the Brewers a 2-1 advantage to lead off the sixth.

“It’s welcome, for sure,” Counsell said. “Doing a nice job. Just keep him going and have him finish strong through the end of the first half here.”

Anderson, whose wife, Alex, gave birth to their first child Tuesday morning, tacked on to the lead later in the sixth with a two-out RBI single off Steele after Jahmai Jones had singled and stole second.

This article originally appeared on Milwaukee Journal Sentinel: Brian Anderson's error proves costly in Brewers loss to Cubs