Brandon Sproat had his best start of the season, and the Brewers’ offense did just enough to escape with a win. After losing six straight, Milwaukee has now won their last two games against last year’s American League champions.
The two teams combined for just one hit (a single off the bat of Gary Sánchez) through two innings, but Toronto broke through in the third off of Sproat. Andrés Giménez doubled into right field, and Ernie Clement singled to put runners on the corners with nobody out. The next batter, Tyler Heineman, laid down a sacrifice bunt to score Giménez and advance Clement to second base, but Sproat was able to retire the next two batters to keep the damage to one run.
Milwaukee got that run back in the bottom of the fourth. Brice Turang led off with a double, and William Contreras singled to move him over to third. Sánchez then hit a fly ball to right field that wasn’t quite deep enough to score Turang, who tagged up but stayed at third. The next batter, Luis Rengifo, hit a slightly deeper fly ball. Turang broke for the plate, and the throw was just a little bit down the third base line, allowing Turang to slide in ahead of the tag to tie the game.
The Brewers scored what would ultimately be the game-winning run in the seventh courtesy of three straight bunts, which you don’t often see in 2026. Garrett Mitchell pinch-hit for Luis Matos and worked a walk. Greg Jones, making his debut with the Brewers, laid down a great bunt down the third base line, but Heineman came out from behind the plate, spun, and fired a rocket to first base that beat Jones by half a step. Mitchell advanced to second on the sacrifice bunt.
Up next was David Hamilton, who beat out an even better bunt — also down the third base line — to put runners on the corners for Joey Ortiz. Ortiz, no stranger to hitting with runners in scoring position, came through in the clutch with a squeeze bunt that scored Mitchell to give the Brewers the lead. Ty Cobb would have been proud:
The Brewers have now scored three runs or fewer in six of their last eight games dating back to the Boston series. While not ideal, it’s also not particularly surprising given that they’re missing three of their best hitters in Christian Yelich, Jackson Chourio, and Andrew Vaughn. Still, Milwaukee has shown grit over these last couple of games, finding a way to win by any means necessary. That’s a quality that will take this team far.
The bullpen, normally a strength for the Brewers, had struggled during the losing streak. Today, Trevor Megill retired the side in the eighth inning, striking out two Blue Jays and shouting as he walked off the field. He didn’t look untouchable, nor was his fastball touching 100 (topping out at 98.2 today), but the knuckle curve looked good — as did the results. Angel Zerpa picked up the save in the ninth after working around a leadoff single from Vladimir Guerrero Jr.
The star of today’s game was Brandon Sproat, who showed exactly why the Brewers wanted him as part of the return package for Freddy Peralta. The right-hander went 6 2/3 innings while allowing only four hits and just the one run. His fastball touched 98.6 mph on the way to racking up six strikeouts. He only walked one batter after struggling with command in his previous outings as a Brewer. Oh, and his stuff looked really, really good. For Sproat, Megill, and the rest of the Brewers’ pitching staff, today had to have built some confidence.
Milwaukee is now two games over .500 as they head to Miami to take on the Marlins. First pitch is at 6:10 p.m. tomorrow.
