After an abysmal stretch of games through the first half of June, the Milwaukee Brewers (38-30) got back to winning ways as they swpet the Cincinnati Reds (23-43) on the road. The Crew took all three games of the weekend series from their division rivals which is as many wins as they had in their past 15 games.
A Big Sweep
The Brewers came into this series looking for much-needed victories after struggling to get anything going in the first half of June. They took all three games with solid pitching and timely hitting.
Game One
The Crew won the first game of the series 5-4.
Despite giving up three homers, Eric Lauer gave the Brewers a great start. He went 6.1 innings where he allowed four runs and struck out five. The Bullpen held the game down with 2.2 innings, only allowing two hits and one walk.
After not hitting many homers during their rough stretch they finally broke the power bats out. Hunter Renfroe started the scoring with a three-run homer in the 4th. Willy Adames hit a solo homer in the 5th to put the Crew up 4-0. After the Reds tied the game at four, Keston Huira hit a massive go-ahead solo homer in the 7th to give the Brewers a 5-4 lead which they held to the very end.
Game Two
The second game was a much more dominant victory as the Crew won 7-3.
Rookie starter Jason Alexander has been incredible for the Brewers since being called up following injuries to Freddy Peralta and Brandon Woodruff. He has been extremely dominant in each performance and this was no exception. In this outing, he went 5.2 innings where he gave up only two earned runs on eight hits. He finally earned his first career win in the major leagues.
Of Alexander’s four starts this is his third time going five-plus innings. In each outing, he has not given up more than two earned runs which have netted him an excellent 2.42 ERA over his 22.1 innings pitched in his young career. This is a team that constantly finds great pitching and it will be interesting to see what happens to him when Peralta and Woodruff come back.
The bats broke out once again. For the second straight day, Renfroe and Adames both homered. Jace Peterson, Rowdy Tellez and Luis Urias each recorded run-scoring doubles. They put up seven or more runs for only the second time in their last 16 games.
Game Three
The Brewers completed the sweep with a 6-3 win on Sunday afternoon.
After an excellent start to the season for starter Adrian Houser, it has been a brutal road for him. He finally had a decent start against the Reds. He went a very solid six innings where he gave up three runs and struck out five. Houser claimed his first victory since May 5 against the Reds.
Urias recorded an RBI double for the second straight game to get the Brewers on the board first in the top of the 4th inning. Victor Caratini then brought Urias home with a two-run homer. With a 4-3 lead in the top of the 7th, Renfroe added to the cushion with a two-run homer.
Devin Williams sealed the win for a crew with three quick outs including two strikeouts for his fifth save of the season.
Overall
This was a great series for pitching and offense giving them their best series in a while.
The last time this team won a series was May 23-25 against the San Diego Padres, and the last time they swept a series was May 3-5 against the Reds when they scored 34 runs in three games.
They now lead the Reds 7-2 in the season series.
Pitching
It has been a while since all the starters came away with a win in a series. The last time it happened was against the Reds in their wild scoring series on May 3-5.
Impressively, the Brewers bullpen, which has not been as great as expected in June, did not allow a single run in nine innings. All they allowed were five hits and two walks while they struck out 10. The last time this bullpen allowed a run was June 10. This puts them at eight straight scoreless games.
Offense
For the offense, the main stars were Renfroe and Adames. The last time Adames hit homers in back-to-back games was April 25-26 against the San Francisco Giants and Pittsburgh Pirates. For Renfroe, it has been since August 7-9, 2018 against the Brewers that he last had three straight games with a homer with the San Diego Padres.
Additionally, the last time they hit seven homers over a three-game span was May 28-30.
It took the Milwaukee Brewers almost a month before they won another series, but they finally did it with great hitting, a bunch of home runs and great pitching, especially from their starters. The Crew now starts a seven-game home stand with four against the St. Louis Cardinals. These two come into this series with the exact same record in a tie for first. This is the third four-game series between these two this season and so far the season series is split 4-4. Can the Brewers’ pitching and hitting come up clutch in a huge battle against their division rivals?
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