Diamondbacks 6, Brewers 3: Corbin Burnes struggles and the offense misses opportunities in Game 1 loss

The Milwaukee Brewers' two all-star pitchers needed to be better.

Their offense did, too.

The 2023 Major League Baseball postseason opened with a thud – a heart-wrenching thud – Tuesday night at American Family Field for the Brewers.

A lead disappeared in the blink of an eye. That's how quickly reality set in, too.

A poor outing from Corbin Burnes in which the Brewers No. 1 starter couldn’t keep the ball in the park compounded by a cavalcade of missed opportunities by the bats and a bad ninth inning from Devin Williams sent Milwaukee to a 6-3 loss against the Arizona Diamondbacks in Game 1 of the National League wild-card series.

BOX SCORE: Diamondbacks 6, Brewers 3 (Game 1)

Milwaukee faces elimination on Wednesday night and needs to win the next two to keep its season alive.

The Brewers' hopes are not crushed, only bruised.

"I think we’re still confident in ourselves," outfielder Tyrone Taylor said. "I know me, personally, I’m confident in our team. We got two more chances to go out there and get some wins. Thank God it’s a three-game series. We’re going to go out there and do our best and see what happens."

The drive to the ballpark hours earlier featured thoughts of optimism, of how far this team could go. The clubhouse following the game was silent.

"Look, in a three-game series, you lose Game 1, your back is up against the wall, and you have faced adversity, and we have to respond to it," Brewers manager Craig Counsell said. "It's as simple as that."

Now the Brewers will have to beat a pair of frontline starters, Zac Gallen and Merrill Kelly, in order to advance. It sure is jarring how quickly things can change in a best-of-three series, isn't it?

"Yeah," answered Taylor.

Burnes, in his shortest outing of the year, allowed three homers across only four innings as he single handedly sieved a three-run lead in a span of five hitters.

Then, trying to keep the deficit at one in the ninth, Williams walked three batters before surrendering the knockout blow, a two-run Christian Walker double.

The two all-stars allowed all of Arizona's runs on the evening.

But the Brewers had ample chances to make up for the uncharacteristic outing from the right-hander, leaving a small village on the bases while coming up short in critical moment after critical moment.

It was, in a word, brutal.

"I think there’s frustration on both sides," Williams said. "We could’ve thrown it better. We could’ve hit better. There’s a lot of improvements that we can make before tomorrow."

How to watch: Milwaukee Brewers vs. Arizona Diamondbacks Game 2 Time, TV channel, schedule

Brewers jump out to an early lead thanks to Tyrone Taylor

The night seemed at first like it might belong to Tyrone Taylor.

With Milwaukee already holding a 1-0 lead thanks to Carlos Santana’s first-inning RBI single to score Christian Yelich, Taylor stepped to the plate with a man out and runner on second.

Behind, 0-2, in the count Taylor got on top of an elevated fastball from D-backs starter Brandon Pfaadt and sent it way out to left for a two-run blast that put the Brewers in front, 3-0. He donned a cheesehead in the dugout after circling the bases, marking the return of Milwaukee's home run celebration that disappeared midway through the season.

With Burnes on the bump, the outlook seemed positive for the Brewers.

"The end goal here is to win," Taylor said. "But I was able to enjoy the moment for a little bit. My parents were also in the stands so that was a cool thing for them, I’m sure."

Taylor and the Brewers offense jumped all over the rookie Pfaadt. The first three batters of the game reached base and they tagged him for seven hits and one walk as he couldn't even make it out of the third inning.

But Milwaukee couldn't muster up the fatal blow against Pfaadt or the Arizona bullpen, which recorded 19 outs without allowing a run. The Brewers pieced together myriad rallies, including threatening ones in the third, fifth and sixth but the end result was what mattered -- and that was a litany of zeroes on the board.

Home runs matter in October. The Brewers, though, are not a team that hits many homers by their nature. And by being unable to slug a ball in a critical spot Tuesday, it burned them.

D-backs immediately evaporate the lead against Burnes

Burnes had been so sharp, so crisp and so nasty through two innings and change at the time he opened the third inning with a strikeout looking, his third in a row.

What, exactly, went wrong after that is a bit confounding.

What isn't is this. Burnes lost the feel for his off-speed, lost his command with the cutter and the D-backs turned the batter’s box into a launch pad.

"We have to be better there," Burnes said.

After Burnes walked nine-hole hitter Geraldo Perdomo with one out in the third, Corbin Carroll waited back on a 1-1 changeup and crushed it 444 feet to right-center to cut the Brewers’ lead to 3-2.

It wasn’t a bad pitch call at all. Carroll struggles more against changeups than any other pitch, and Burnes in his own right had only allowed one long ball on his change all year. But Burnes, even though it was down in the zone, caught too much plate with it and an elite hitter hit it a long way.

The ambush was on.

Ketel Marte jumped on the next offering – a cutter on the inner third and belt-high – and lined it on a rope just over the fence in right.

3-3.

"We felt like if we can compete, keep the game where it was at 3-2 with Corbin Burnes, that we would stay within striking distance," Arizona manager Torey Luvullo said. "We felt good about that. Then literally seven seconds later, the score is tied."

Leading off the fourth, Burnes had D-backs catcher Gabriel Moreno where he wanted him with two strikes thanks to two whiffs. He tried to double up on a slider away and missed his spot.

Badly.

Moreno got a hanging slider and lofted it with force 425 feet to left-center and over the Brewers bullpen to put Arizona in front. It was the type of pitch that a red-hot batter like Moreno, who had an .894 OPS in the second half of the season, isn’t likely to miss.

Burnes exited the game with no outs in the fifth after walking the first two batters of the inning, having thrown 92 pitches to get 12 outs. It tied his shortest outing of the year – and his only previous four-inning game was short by design.

"I just did a poor job after that of executing pitches," Burnes said. "That's really all it comes down to."

With fellow starter Brandon Woodruff out for the series and likely the entire postseason with a shoulder injury, Tuesday was an opportunity for Burnes to step up, to toe the rubber with the vigor and dominate.

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It didn't go as planned.

Now, there is the lingering question of if that was Burnes' last start in a Brewers uniform; Burnes is entering his final year of team control and with that territory comes the real possibility Milwaukee trades him this off-season.

"Every time in the postseason you want to get it done," Burnes said Monday. "You never know what's going to happen tomorrow. You never know what's going to happen next week. You never know what's going to happen this off-season, next year."

Brewers rally in the fifth inning thwarted in crushing fashion

The fifth inning for the Brewers? It's hard to envision it being any more crushing.

Bases loaded. Nobody out. And not only did they not score, but were robbed of multiple runs by a highlight-reel defensive play – after already having a run taken off the board via video review.

It appeared as if the Brewers had tied the score when Brice Turang was hit by a pitch from reliever Ryne Nelson with the bases loaded, but replay showed the ball just narrowly missed his front foot. Turang then struck out.

Facing Ryan Thompson, fresh into the game, Taylor fought back from down 0-2 to draw a full count before smashing a low liner toward third baseman Evan Longoria.

The ball was destined for the left-field corner until the 37-year-old made a leaping spear with a snow cone grab that almost popped out of his mitt. Had the ball cleared Longoria, it likely scores three runs, puts the Brewers in front and potentially leads to an even bigger rally with Yelich due up next.

"It was disbelief," Taylor said. "Since I was a little kid, I’ve watched that man do that so I shouldn’t have been in that much disbelief. But it was a good play by him. Things didn’t go our way tonight."

Making matters even worse for Milwaukee, Willy Adames was doubled off at second base for the third out.

"It's difficult. I think he probably read over his head, and it was probably two inches from being over his head, and unfortunately it cost us for sure," Counsell said. "He made an aggressive lead. It turned out to be the wrong one."

Sixth-inning miscue hurts the Brewers

Another inning, another baserunning mistake at second base was costly.

Yelich walked to lead off the inning, then advanced to second on William Contereras’ infield single, which was bobbled when Longoria, this time, couldn’t make a play.

Yelich had thoughts of trying to take third base as he rounded second but had to slam on the brakes when he saw it was going to be covered. Longoria made a heads-up toss back to second, where Marte caught Yelich too far off the bag.

The Brewers, again, failed to score.

Through six innings, they had accumulated 11 hits and four walks. Twelve of those base runners didn’t score.

Milwaukee put a runner on base in eight of nine innings, including getting either the first or second man of the inning aboard each of the first seven frames.

Devin Williams struggles badly in his playoff debut

Williams wasn't available for the playoffs in 2020 or 2021, so his postseason debut was much-anticipated by the time it finally rolled around.

It wound up being disastrous.

Williams walked three batters, including the first two of the ninth inning, before allowing a ringing two-run double with two outs and two strikes to Christian Walker.

His command was troubling from the first batter.

He got ahead of Perdomo, who proved infuriatingly pesky with three walks on the night, before spraying four balls well out of the strike zone for a leadoff walk.

Carroll followed with a walk. Williams then appeared to start finding his command again, striking out Marte on a foul count.

Catcher William Contreras threw out Perdomo attempting to steal third, giving Williams a chance to pull an escape act and throw the fifth straight scoreless inning from the bullpen, following in the footsteps of Abner Uribe, Elvis Peguero, Hoby Milner and Joel Payamps.

Instead, he walked Tommy Pham and surrendered a missile of a two-run double off the center-field wall off the bat of Walker.

"I just kind of lost it," Williams said. "I was living with my fastball there. Just kind of got away from me."

As Williams spoke in a hushed tone, he did so in the face of a throng of cameras and, with a lack of space around him, up close to his locker. His back was against the wall.

So are the Brewers'.

"I think it’s pretty simple: It’s a do or die game tomorrow," Williams said. "We need to come out and play our best game."

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This article originally appeared on Milwaukee Journal Sentinel: Diamondbacks beat Brewers 6-3 in NL wild-card series Game 1