After three days of frustration with umpires, the Brewers took matters into their own hands against Tampa

Stop the presses. For the first time this week, the Milwaukee Brewers played nine innings of drama-free baseball.

Well, almost.

There was, after all, the discussion between the umpires and the Brewers dugout regarding Thyago Vieira’s illegally-colored two-tone glove when he came on to pitch the ninth inning Wednesday  afternoon. The umpires ruled Vieira had to switch gloves even though it was the same mitt they allowed him to utilize the night before, which prompted some frustration in the Brewers dugout – voiced most notably by Devin Williams – about selective enforcement.

Not even in a completely standard 7-1 ballgame could there be no tension between the Brewers and umpires. Not this week, at least.

“I didn’t want to laugh, but honestly I did want to at the same time,” said associate manager Rickie Weeks, filling in as acting manager for the suspended Pat Murphy on Wednesday. “Just because of what’s transpired the past couple of days.”

Grumblings over Vieira’s glove aside, Wednesday’s game was precisely what the doctor ordered for Milwaukee. Not only was it a win, but a comfortable one at that. Willy Adames, the stabilizing presence in the Brewers’ clubhouse, carried that over to the field and hit two home runs. Colin Rea threw six innings of shutout ball. There wasn’t a chance for the umpires to make an impact.

“It was good,” Weeks said. “Those guys in that clubhouse, the vets around the clubhouse were pretty good. We wanted to come out there and win to get the series win and we did.”

Brewers frustrated with how umpiring decisions went this week

The Brewers, no doubt, would like to move on from the way the homestand finished, even if they did manage to go 3-3 starting with Sunday’s controversial call on Aaron Judge’s slide. They believe they will be able to do so, too.

But that doesn’t mean there wasn’t frustration still simmering behind the scenes heading into the finale against the Rays, so much so that the call on Judge from Sunday – one that potentially impacted the outcome and the umps even admitted was wrong – was an afterthought.

The rule that took the tying run off the board in the ninth inning of a one-run loss Monday night was still fresh on minds, but players remained most bothered by the decision of the umpiring crew, led by crew chief Chris Guccione, to eject Freddy Peralta without warning in the sixth inning the following day.

BOX SCORE: Brewers 7, Rays 1

That ejection, which resulted from Peralta hitting Jose Siri on a 3-0 pitch one at-bat after he had taken the right-hander deep, resulted in a five-game suspension levied upon Peralta.

Following the game Tuesday, Peralta was emphatic he didn’t mean to hit Siri. He maintained that stance when speaking with reporters once the suspension came down.

“No,” Peralta said when asked if he thought five games was fair. “For sure, no. But what can I do? He had already ejected me from the game. So I knew Murphy was coming hot and I was mad. But I never want to make the team worse. It could be worse.

"If I maybe had expressed myself with the umpires, it could’ve been worse. Imagine I get suspended for more days. I don’t want that for me and for the team.”

Yes, he hit Siri with a 3-0 fastball after he had given up a 452-foot home run to him. But 17 other batters already this season had been hit by a pitch after hitting a homer in the same game; none of those led to ejections.

Guccione even admitted to a pool reporter after the game that nothing transpired between Siri and Peralta or the Brewers after his homer – which Guccione himself labeled as “a pretty good home run” – in the third inning. The crew had issued no warnings to that point. Peralta was at 65 pitches through 5 ⅓ innings and trying to work deep into the game for a team with the fewest starting pitcher innings thrown of any in the majors.

Yet that was enough for the crew to, rather than opting to issue warnings, determine beyond doubt that Peralta had intentionally hit Siri, which then led to the five-game suspension.

“You put what happened previously in the game together, and we get together as a crew and we discuss all the events, and we determined as a crew that Peralta was intentionally throwing at Siri,” Guccione said.

Events between Peralta and Siri that, again, were characterized as “nothing was really said that we noticed.”

“A lot of unfortunate things have happened,” Adames said. “That’s the game of baseball. It’s something new every day. It’s something that you’re not expecting to happen. That’s the way it goes. You just got to ride with it.”

Brewers taking on tone set by manager Pat Murphy

The Brewers rode with it Wednesday.

They found out roughly 20 minutes before the game Murphy would have to sit out. (Peralta and Abner Uribe, suspended six games for instigating a benches-clearing brawl and throwing a punch Tuesday, appealed their suspensions.)

“I like the way our guys came together,” Weeks said. “Murph did set the tone. So the biggest thing for us right there is just go up there and play fast and play free.”

Adames said the tone that Murphy set dates all the way back to the beginning of spring training and the Brewers have tried to take it into every game since.

“Since the first day in spring training he’s said the right things,” Adames said. “It’s about winning. It’s about win today. He’s set the right mindset for the boys in spring training and I think we’ve been carrying that the whole season so far. He wasn’t there today but we still had that mentality. We’re just trying to win. And we did.”

There’s undoubtedly some fight boiling deep down within Murphy. That grizzly persona comes out once in a while, like it did Tuesday. And when it does, watch out.

His team seems to embody that, too.

They’ve already gotten into three benches-clearing incidents. Some tense situations, such as Uribe losing control of his temper, could have been afforded with a bit more control, no doubt. But they’re tenacious and not willing to back down.

So far, at 19-11 and in first place heading into the weekend, it’s translated to the field.

“At the end of the day, we’re playing the game the right way,” Adames said. “We’re trying to win games.

This article originally appeared on Milwaukee Journal Sentinel: Brewers move past umpire controversies with win over Rays