Brewers 7, Twins 3: Now on a roll, Milwaukee moves to season-high 12 games over .500
In small samples, baseball is the ultimate game of variance. Its bad breaks, tough bounces and cruel twists are enough to drive even the most seasoned observers and fans crazy.
Give it time, though, and no sport evens out like baseball. The ups become the downs. The downs become the ups. The six months of unpredictability, of the back and forth, are baseball’s yin and yang.
A week after suffering from a litany of bad luck during a deflating sweep at the hands of the Los Angeles Dodgers, the baseball deities rewarded the Brewers in the sixth inning of Tuesday night’s 7-3 win over the Minnesota Twins.
The win moved the Brewers to 12 games over .500, their high-water mark up to this point in the season, and coincided with a Chicago Cubs loss in Detroit to move their division lead to 3.5 games, which matches the highest it's been for any team in first in the NL Central this year.
"I think everything's finally coming together," Brewers reliever Bryse Wilson said. "You've seen glimpses of how well we can throw it. You've seen glimpses of how well we can hit the baseball throughout the season. Now, it's all coming together. We're actually throwing the ball well and hitting at the same time."
Trailing, 3-2, entering the sixth, the Brewers caught their first break when Twins starting pitcher Bailey Ober, who had allowed only one hit since the first inning and retired eight in a row, was not the man on the mound.
In his stead was right-hander Dylan Floro, who the Brewers tagged with consecutive singles by William Contreras and Carlos Santana to open the inning. After Willy Adames, already on the board with a two-run homer off Ober in the first, struck out Milwaukee stumbled upon a heap of good fortune.
BOX SCORE: Brewers 7, Twins 3
Mark Canha produced the team’s first hit with a runner in scoring position all night, poking a two-strike offering from Floro through the unoccupied right side of the infield.
Tyrone Taylor followed with the bloop single of all bloop singles, dropping a duck snort between the drawn-in infield and rightfielder Matt Wallner to score Santana, move Canha to third and give the Brewers a 4-3 lead.
Brice Turang then looped a soft liner toward Twins shortstop Carlos Correa, who seemed to have the ball tracked until he mistimed his leap and it ricocheted off his mitt and trickled into left field.
Canha scored and Taylor motored from first to third, forcing the Twins to keep their infield in for Brian Anderson, who, without an RBI since July 5, gently prodded a ball on the ground up the middle and through a vacancy in the Minnesota defense, scoring two and putting Milwaukee up, 7-3.
“The last couple of weeks, it’s felt like there’s 15 defenders out there and there’s nowhere that the ball can land," Anderson said. "Seeing a ball get through the infield, especially in a big spot like that, it was really great."
The breaks could not have gone against the Brewers much more than they did a week ago in Los Angeles; they couldn't have gone in their favor any more in that inning against the Twins.
"We caught some breaks that inning, no question about it," Brewers manager Craig Counsell said. "Some softly hit balls found holes. But we kept putting it in play, and once in a while you get rewarded for that. That's the adage of what you put the ball in play, because every once in a while something good can happen. That’s what happened tonight for us."
Adames carries hot weekend over into Milwaukee
Adames had the worst day of his season Thursday in Los Angeles, striking out four times, including three with Sal Frelick on second base. The final punch out came with the tying run 180 feet away in the top of the ninth inning.
But – speaking of the ebb and flow of a baseball season – Adames delivered two of his best games immediately after.
He went 7 for 9 with a homer and three runs driven in across the Brewers’ first two contests with the Texas Rangers, including a 4-for-4 showing plus a walk on Saturday.
Adames cracked open the scoring against the Twins, delivering a two-run shot off Ober with two outs in the first. The homer gave Adames as many (two) in the last three games as he had in the previous 24 games.
It also was Adames’ 20th of the year, making him the first Brewers shortstop in franchise history to have three consecutive years with 20 or more homers.
Bullpen does the job
After the Brewers had a tough time putting the Rangers away over the weekend when they had a big lead late, there would be no underappreciation in the clubhouse of what the bullpen did Tuesday.
Wilson threw two scoreless, clean innings with three strikeouts after relieving starter Wade Miley, who went five innings allowing three runs.
Wilson picked up the win, improving to 5-0 on the year in a season in which his role of a versatile innings-eater hasn't always gotten as much notice as it deserves. The righty, a converted starter who was once a top prospect with the Braves, leads the bullpen with 60 innings pitched and has a 3.15 ERA.
"He’s great," Miley said. "He’s been really good in his role. He’s been very professional about handling his role and understanding that’s his role this year and he’s been really, really good at it. It’s a huge part of the season, being able to cover innings like that in the middle of the game, whether you’re up big, down big or in a big situation. He’s excelled really well there."
After Wilson, Hoby Milner and Trevor Megill threw scoreless innings to keep the lead at four and avoid having to use Devin Williams, who had to come in and register a save twice over the weekend when the Brewers entered the ninth with a five-run lead.
"Trevor’s throwing the ball really well," Counsell said. "That’s four outings in a row where it’s been really lights out in my opinion. We have to keep him locked in. We’ve got a guy in a good place right now. He’s confident right now. That’s the one thing that you notice on the mound. He’s throwing a ton of strikes. His confidence is high right now, that’s what he’s giving off as much as anything."
Brewers schedule coming up
Thursday – Twins at Brewers, 1:10 p.m. Minnesota RHP Kenta Maeda (3-7, 4.13) vs. Milwaukee RHP Corbin Burnes (9-6, 3.43). TV: Bally Sports Wisconsin. Radio: AM-620.
More: Could Garrett Mitchell still make it back this season for the Brewers?
This article originally appeared on Milwaukee Journal Sentinel: Brewers 7, Twins 3: Milwaukee moves to season-high 12 games over .500
