A rough road trip gets worse for the Brewers as they give up multiple leads, lose 6-4 to Giants

SAN FRANCISCO – The Milwaukee Brewers were openly eager to get out of Denver after a disheartening sweep at the hands of the last-place Colorado Rockies to open the week.

The only problem is they seemed to haul their poor execution in pivotal moments with them to San Francisco on Friday night.

The Brewers inflicted damage upon themselves once again in a 6-4 loss to the Giants at Oracle Park, twice blowing a two-run lead with Corbin Burnes on the mound and then seeing the offense go dormant late as they continue to turn a dazzling start to the year into a back-to-earth record thanks to crash-landing play this week.

The loss pushed the losing streak to five games.

BOX SCORE: Giants 6, Brewers 4

“No one wants to lose five games,” Burnes said. ”We’re trying to win every game we play. No one’s going sit back on their heels and say, ‘ Oh, yeah, we were 10 games above .500 and now we’re or five days above .500. No one wants to go out there and lose five games in a row. We're out here playing our (butts) off.”

Take the fifth inning on the shores of the San Francisco Bay as a microcosm for these last five games.

For the second time, the Brewers offense had just staked starting pitcher Corbin Burnes to a two-run lead by scratching across a pair of runs in the top half of the frame. Their four runs through five innings – against a lefty, nonetheless – should have been enough to put Milwaukee in a position to snap a four-game losing streak with the ace on the mound.

Burnes immediately relinquished the lead both times he had it.

J.D. Davis’ two-run homer tied the game at 2-2 in the bottom of the first, but the next time around it was all-around poor execution by the Brewers that handed the Giants the lead on a platter.

After Burnes popped up Joey Bart for the first out of the inning, he left an 0-2 sinker up to Brett Wisely that the rookie laced to left on a rope for a single. The offering was poorly executed, as Burnes was trying to throw a ball out of the zone; he had thrown only 17 sinkers to left-handed batters since the beginning of the 2022 season.

“That’s just one that is not supposed to be in the zone,” Burnes said. “It's a straight chase, strictly a chase pitch up and away. He'd seen it low and away and down, low and away way and down, low and away and down. Then it was supposed to be just a straight chase pitch.”

After Wisely stole second with ease by getting a big jump on Burnes, shortstop Willy Adames had to try a long throw to first on a chopper by Cal Stevenson rather than getting the force out. Adames threw in the dirt, first baseman Luke Voit couldn’t pick it and Stevenson reached on an error.

Burnes recovered to strike out LaMonte Wade Jr. looking and had a chance to escape the inning unscathed when Thairo Estrada tapped a bouncer back to the mound, but the Brewers right-hander bobbled the ball and it rolled down the mound and away from him for an infield hit that scored Wisely.

“Got to make that play,” Burnes said.

From there, it seemed inevitable the Brewers would be punished for giving San Francisco two extra outs. They were. Davis walked, bringing up Joc Pederson, historically a Brewers killer, who hit a two-run single to center to give the Giants a 5-4 lead.

Burnes’ final line indicated he only gave up two earned runs over six innings with five strikeouts but his inability to keep a lead paired with continued troubling woes putting hitters away with two strikes marred the outing in reality.

Burnes made a living off being one of the game’s most ruthless pitchers with two strikes over the previous three seasons. His pinpoint execution with his cutter and myriad of plus secondary pitches was unmatched.

In 2020, Burnes finished 48.9% of two-strike plate appearances with a swinging strike. That number dipped a bit over full seasons to 42.6% and 41.3% in 2021 and 2022, respectively, but he was still well above league-average, which hovers around 33%.

This year, Burnes is at 25.9%. The difficulty putting hitters away burned him in the fifth, in particular, as he threw 10 two-strike pitches and got no whiffs, getting within one strike of a punchout and being unable to record it against Wisely, Stevenson, Estrada and Pederson – all of whom reached base.

“Early on, it was it was just bad execution,” Burnes said. “We would get to two strikes but trying to make it too good and it would back up on me. Just not competitive two-strike pitches. Last couple of outings have been a lot better. We're getting the swings and misses, but we just see more and more lineups going up there and making an effort not to strike out, so we're seeing guys shorten up to put it in play.”

It was another lackluster performance all-around from the Brewers on a road trip that has seen them fail to take any advantage of the rest of the NL Central performing as dreadfully. The St. Louis Cardinals and Pittsburgh Pirates have both also failed to record a win this week, with the lowly Cardinals having dropped seven in a row, but the Brewers have lost five straight themselves.

The last four of those losses were against teams that were 9-20 and 13-17 entering their series with Milwaukee.

In a game Friday in which the small details ended up mattering a great deal, the Brewers executed on some of them, but not nearly enough. They stole a run in the first when Owen Miller streaked home while Brian Anderson got caught on purpose in a rundown off of first with two outs and two strikes, then swiped another thanks to a double steal in the fifth.

But, after undoing that good with a series of miscues in the bottom of the fifth, four hapless innings against a Giants' bullpen with the third-worst ERA in baseball and allowing a pinch-hit solo homer to San Francisco's Wilmer Flores in the eighth, it wasn’t enough.

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This article originally appeared on Milwaukee Journal Sentinel: Corbin Burnes, Brewers blow multiple leads in loss to Giants