Joey Ortiz helps power Brewers offense to series opening win against Padres

Frelick then hit a 60.6 MPH dribbling ground ball through the left side of the infield, with the 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 Joey 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 2 RBI 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 6th, and an RBI double from Andujar again in the 8th.

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 IP with 3 earned runs as he seemed to be running out of gas in that sixth inning.

“We were hoping, like hey look we got a nice lead here. Go out there, you can 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 gets 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 6th inning, Bullpen Chad Patrick made an appearance, butting 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 4th inning, even though Yelich finished the night 0-for-4 with a pair of strikeouts.