On the night where Christian Yelich returned to the lineup, one of the biggest punching bags of the offense had the big performance.
Joey Ortiz has taken a lot of heat this year from fans for his slow start at the plate, understandably so. Ortiz entered Tuesday’s game with a .181 average, a .443 OPS, and a 27 OPS+. He had just one extra-base hit on the season.
That changed on Tuesday night at American Family Field as Ortiz secured the first Brewers hit of the night and their first run in one swing, lifting a 395-foot home run to left. That’s his first home run since July 19, 2025.
“In the cages before the game, I was watching William (Contreras) and I was like ‘I wanna be like William today’ and it worked out so maybe I’ll do that tomorrow, too,” Ortiz said. “I went in there, fooled around with William a little bit and it actually (made me) lock in, so it’s funny how it happens.”
“The whole team was so excited for him. That was one of the neat things of today, was to see how the team reacted to him hitting one. I mean, it was like a walk off,” Pat Murphy said.
The Padres answered with a pair of runs in the top of the fourth on a two-run single up the middle by Nick Castellanos.
The Brewers then punched right back in the fourth inning, sending 10 men to the plate. It all started on a William Contreras one-out double off the top of the wall in right field. Jake Bauers followed with a walk, and Garrett Mitchell lined a single to center to load the bases for Sal Frelick.
Frelick then hit a 60.6-mph dribbling ground ball through the left side of the infield. With shortstop Xander Bogaerts playing up the middle, he wasn’t even close enough to get to that baseball, allowing two runs to score on a ball that barely made it 10 feet into the outfield grass.
David Hamilton then followed with a bunt single and was able to reach because Matt Waldron looked to third base right away with no one there and couldn’t make the throw to first in time to get the speedy Hamilton. That meant Ortiz was up again, this time with the bases loaded.
Ortiz lifted the first pitch he saw high and deep into centerfield, the crowd erupted, thinking Ortiz had just homered again, but it fell short at the warning track and Ortiz had to settle for a sac fly.
Brice Turang kept the inning going with a two-run double to make it a 6-2 ballgame and Jackson Chourio supplied an infield single that chased Waldron from the game.
The Brewers continued to just hold on after that with the offense falling fairly silent against the Padres bullpen. San Diego got a home run from Miguel Andujar in the sixth, and an RBI double from Andujar again in the eighth.
Brandon Sproat was very good tonight, striking out four Padres in the first two innings and ending up with six strikeouts on the night, tying his season high. He was pulled after 5 1/3 innings with three earned runs as he seemed to be running out of gas in that sixth inning.
“We were hoping to go out there and get it done. But then he hung a breaking ball and then made another pitch down the middle. His stuff was going down; you could see the difference in the stuff. We want to try to work through that and still make pitches. It doesn’t mean just because your fastball is 97 to 95 to 94, it doesn’t mean you can’t be effective. We were hoping he could,” Pat Murphy said.
Sproat earned his first MLB win in his 12th career game (10th start), which led to his first career beer shower from the team.
“It got my eyes a little burned, but my hair kind of felt soft after, so I might start using that as shampoo,” Sproat joked after the game.
Shane Drohan got him out of the sixth inning, and bullpen Chad Patrick made an appearance, putting together a 1-2-3 seventh inning. Pat Murphy said pre-game that they have some decisions to make with Patrick and his role in the starting rotation, but that he likes how Patrick has pitched out of the bullpen. After that, it was the back end of the bullpen 1-2 punch of Trevor Megill and Abner Uribe to slam the door and secure the Brewers fifth straight win.
Joey Ortiz finished the night 2-for-3 with a pair of RBIs, one of his best games in a while. The offense certainly looked more potent with Yelich in the lineup, especially in that fourth inning, even though Yelich finished the night 0-for-4 with a pair of strikeouts.
The Brewers are back at it on Wednesday night, as they’ll look to stretch their win streak to five games. Jacob Misiorowski starts against Michael King in a strong pitching matchup. First pitch is at 6:40 p.m.
