Box Score
The Milwaukee Brewers and San Diego Padres played a tightly contested game today, an ugly and oddly endearing ballgame that certainly appealed to the types of people who like “gritty veteran pitchers” and “small ball.” Brewers starter Jose Quintana wasn’t working with his best stuff tonight, but he gutted his way through five innings while allowing only one run, and while the Brewers failed to get to Padres starter Stephen Kolek, they did just enough against a tough Padres bullpen, took a couple of punches, and came back with a knockout, a walk-off homer on the first pitch they saw after the Padres tied it in the top of the ninth.
Both teams had a harmless two-out baserunner in the first (a Manny Machado seeing-eye single and a Christian Yelich walk, which followed a near-miss from Jackson Chourio). Quintana got a bit wild with two outs in the second, when he issued back-to-back walks to the Padres’ number seven and eight hitters, Jake Cronenworth and Elias Díaz, but he struck out Brandon Lockridge to end the inning.
Sal Frelick led off the bottom of the second with a bloop single. Rhys Hoskins followed with a drive to deep right not unlike Chourio’s in the first, but like Chourio’s, it held up on the warning track. Isaac Collins was next and he battled for a seven-pitch walk. But Caleb Durbin followed with a weak grounder to short that started a 6-4-3 double play, and the inning was over with the score still knotted at zero.
Quintana had his first clean inning in the third when he went three-up, three-down against the top of the Padres’ order. Joey Ortiz started the bottom of the inning much like Frelick started the second, with a bloop single, and Turang followed with hard contact to the opposite field but it held up in left for the first out, and Chourio—who has made a bunch of hard contact the last couple days but with very little to show for it—hit a hard ground ball that turned into the team’s second double play in as many innings.
Jackson Merrill started the top of the fourth with a single to left, and one out later, Quintana walked Jose Iglesias (easier said than done—Iglesias, in 13 major league seasons, has never walked more than 28 times). He struck out Cronenworth looking on a close 3-2 pitch (it was definitely a strike, but it was close), but Díaz got ahead of Quintana 3-0 before shooting a single through the left side for an RBI single to break the scoreless tie. Bogaerts popped out to end the inning but the Padres took a lead into the bottom of the fourth against a Brewer offense who hadn’t scored since Wednesday.
Yelich crushed a ball to lead off the bottom of the inning, but it was a little too flat and Merrill caught it in center. Contreras, who looks lost at the plate at the moment, followed with a strikeout, and Frelick flew out to shallow right to end the inning without a response.
Bogaerts started the fifth with a base hit to left. Luis Arraez popped out to shallow center and Machado grounded into a fielder’s choice, but Merrill extended the inning by poking a bloop single down the left field line that put runners on the corners. By this point, Quintana—who’d struggled all day with pitch count—was up to 97 pitches. After a visit from pitching coach Chris Hook, Quintana was likely facing his last batter no matter the outcome with Nick Mears getting ready in the bullpen, but he got out of it when Gavin Sheets flew out to left.
It wasn’t an efficient outing for Quintana, who dealt with traffic all evening (three walks and five hits in five innings). But he managed to mostly work around the trouble and didn’t give up any extra-base hits, so he limited the damage to one run. Now, could the Brewer offense wake up and give him some support?
With one out in the bottom of the fifth, Collins walked for the second time tonight and the fifth time in the last two games. But Durbin lined out to third and Ortiz grounded out and the Brewers’ scoreless streak reached 14 innings. Mears did enter the game in the top of the sixth, and he looked great, with strikeouts of Iglesias, Cronenworth, and Díaz in order.
Turang made more hard contact to lead off the bottom of the inning but grounded out to shortstop, and Chourio hit a weak grounder back to Kolek for the second out. Yelich followed with his second walk of the game, and Contreras hopped on the first pitch and snuck a grounder through the middle for a single that put runners on the corners. That ended Kolek’s night, as Adrian Morejon, the lefty, entered to face Frelick. Frelick hit a ball straight down that he felt was foul, but it definitely rolled forward onto the plate, and Díaz picked it up and threw to first for the third out. The Brewers’ struggling offense continued to struggle.
Abner Uribe is not struggling. He struck out Lockridge and Bogaerts, and while Arraez isn’t a guy who strikes out, he flew out to right to end the inning.
In the bottom of the seventh, Hoskins led off against Jeremiah Estrada with a fly ball that, to borrow Jeff Levering’s phrase, he just missed. But they got something going after that: Collins lined a sharp single to left, and Durbin followed with an infield single; a wayward throw from Iglesias was knocked down by Cronenworth but allowed Collins to get to third with one out. Desperate for a run, Pat Murphy pinch hit Jake Bauers for Ortiz. Bauers fell behind in the count but hung in there and hit a fly ball to center that was plenty deep to score Collins from third. Turang grounded out to end the inning, but they’d scored their first run of the series and tied the game at one.
Uribe stayed out to start the eighth but Machado lined a hard single just over the glove of Turang at second. That was it for Uribe, who was out there only to face Machado; Jared Koenig entered to face the lefty Merrill. Koenig got Merrill on a fly out to left and Sheets on a hard liner that the new shortstop Monasterio snagged, and he struck out Iglesias to strand Machado at first and send the game to the bottom of the eighth tied.
Chourio was the leadoff hitter against new pitcher Jason Adam in the bottom of the eighth, and the absurdly bad batted ball luck he’s had in this series continued when he hit a 105 mph screamer that looked destined for the left field corner but was instead snagged out of the air by Machado. With one out, Yelich drew his third walk of the contest. Contreras capitalized on some of the batted ball karma floating around and reached on a weak grounder perfectly placed in front of Machado, which put runners on first and second with one out.
Frelick’s at-bat ended in a catcher’s interference. With the runners going on a 2-2 count, Díaz was coming out of his crouch to throw to third, and a Frelick emergency hack hit his hand. It was a drag for Díaz but it loaded the bases with one out for Hoskins, who did what he needed to do: he hit a fly ball to left that was deep enough to score Yelich from third, and the Brewers took a 2-1 lead.
That wasn’t it, though—Collins, who had an awesome night, continued to battle the exit velocity gods by dumping a broken-bat, 65 mph lazy fly ball into shallow left. Frelick was thrown out on the bases for the last out, but not before Contreras scored. Milwaukee handed closer Trevor Megill a 3-1 lead.
He’d need it. Megill came in versus the bottom three in San Diego’s order, though Fernando Tatís Jr. lurked on the bench. Cronenworth was first, and he flew out to Chourio in center. Díaz followed with a base hit (that came one pitch after a 102 mph fastball that looked like it should have been strike three), and the Padres went not to Tatís, but to pinch hitter Tyler Wade. Wade hit a grounder to second; Turang went to second for the first out but Monasterio’s relay wasn’t in time to turn two. That turned the lineup over to Bogaerts with two outs, and Megill walked him on four pitches. Arraez was the new batter, and Megill threw his fifth straight ball to start the at-bat; Megill found the strike zone again on the next pitch, but San Diego executed a double steal to put both their runners—the second being the tying run—in scoring position. Arraez worked the count full and then knocked a double down the left field line and tied the game. (Not for nothing, but that missed strike three on Díaz sure mattered.)
The tie game was a drag, but Megill needed to get out of the inning against the extremely unpopular Machado. He succeeded in getting Machado to ground out to shortstop, and the Brewers headed to the bottom of the ninth in a tie game.
Rookie David Morgan was on for San Diego in the ninth—and on the first pitch he threw, Caleb Durbin, of all people, smashed a walk-off homer into the Brewer bullpen. It was just his second homer of the season (and his career), his first since April 21st. After all the drama in the top of the ninth, it happened so suddenly it felt almost anticlimactic.
This was a pretty fun back-and-forth game, but it would have really been a drag to lose. Instead, the Brewers did just enough to manufacture some runs on offense and Durbin sent the big crowd home happy. Besides Durbin’s walk-off homer, the offensive star needs to be recognized: Isaac Collins, who was 2-for-2 with two singles, two walks, an RBI, a run scored, and some smart baserunning. He did everything the Brewers needed tonight. Contreras was the only Brewer besides Collins and Durbin with two hits, though neither of his singles was exactly hit with authority.
On the pitching side, Quintana didn’t have much but used his “crafty veteran lefty” superpower to limit the Padres to one run in five innings. Mears, Uribe, and Koenig all looked excellent, and even though he had trouble locating his curveball and he gave up those two runs, Megill’s fastball was electric.
The dramatic win gives the Brewers a chance to take the series tomorrow at noon, when Freddy Peralta takes the hill against rookie Ryan Bergert.
