Winners of 50 of their last 69 games (that’s a 117-win pace over a full season) against the Cincinnati Reds, the Milwaukee Brewers will look to keep on rolling on Wednesday night. The Crew has taken the first two games of this series, and a win tonight would secure a series victory.
Just like the first game in this series, it’ll be a battle of left-handers on the mound. The Brewers will have Shane Drohan as their hurler; he’ll be making his seventh start of the season and sixth since being inserted into the rotation at the beginning of June.
Drohan pitched against the Reds his last time out, throwing 4 1/3 scoreless innings, scattering five hits. He was not very efficient, using 98 pitches to get 13 outs, but he kept the Reds off the board in what ultimately ended up as a 6-5 Brewers win. His ERA for the season dropped to 3.12.
The Reds will counter with Andrew Abbott and his 3.90 ERA on the season. The Brewers did not face Abbott during their series last week. Abbott last pitched against the Pirates on Friday and gave up three home runs in 5 1/3 IP.
The Brewers lineup will have some of the usual adjustments they make against left-handers. Gary Sánchez gets the start behind the plate and is batting seventh. That pushes William Contreras to the DH spot, and Christian Yelich gets the night off. Yelich has been scuffling a bit at the plate lately and has struggled against lefties a bit more than usual.
Brice Turang, Jake Bauers, and Garrett Mitchell are the only left-handed hitters in the lineup for the Crew. Bauers is playing right field in place of Sal Frelick, who is coming off an incredible month of June. Cooper Pratt is also back in the lineup after getting a day and a half off to help him reset a little bit following some recent struggles. Joey Ortiz mans the hot corner.
The Reds will have their big boppers at the top of their lineup once again with Elly De La Cruz and Sal Stewart providing a 1-2 punch. Spencer Steer, Eugenio Suárez, and Robert Stephenson make up the meat of their order.
The Brewers will be celebrating America’s 250th anniversary tonight, since they won’t be playing at home on the 4th of July. We’ll see if the Brewers offense can provide some fireworks tonight against Abbott and the Reds pitching staff. First pitch is at 7:10 p.m. with ESPN having the TV broadcast.
