Brewers Fall to Tigers in Extras, 0-1

Tuesday night’s Peralta showdown in Detroit was a true pitcher’s duel from start to finish. There were only seven hits in the contest, and the only extra-base hit meant a walk-off win for Detroit.

Freddy Peralta and former Brewer Wily Peralta pitched six masterful innings before handing it off to their bullpens for shutout baseball that extended into extras.

Freddy Peralta looked more like himself, apparently rebounding from injury, and the rocky starts surrounding it. He allowed only one hard-hit ball (a lineout) and didn’t allow a hit until the fourth inning. He made it through six scoreless innings on 71 pitches. He gave up only two hits, hit two batters, walked no one, and struck out nine. It was the ninth time this season Peralta has limited an opposing team to two hits or fewer.

Unfortunately, the Brewers could not garner any offense against Wily Peralta, and the game was scoreless when a nearly 2-hour rain delay ended the night for both Peraltas.

It became a battle of the bullpens from there. Brad Boxberger retired the side with two strikeouts. Devin Williams and his Airbender struck out the side, making Detroit look silly with swings and misses,

Josh Hader provided a stressful but scoreless ninth inning, walking the bases loaded with one out before striking out the remainder of the side.

The Brewers' offense failed to take advantage of the shutout pitching. They assembled only four hits through eleven innings, all of them singles, two of them coming off the bat of Omar Narváez. They went 1-10 with runners in scoring position.

Jake Cousins required only eight pitches to retire the side with a strikeout in the tenth, aided by a game-saving Kolten Wong play to end the inning. Wong grabbed an infield chopper with the winning run charging home, and made a quick throw to Jace Peterson to bring the game into the eleventh.

In the eleventh, the Brewers made their best go of it, loading the bases with a Lorenzo Cain leadoff single and Eduardo Escobar walk. Christian Yelich, who could claim two of the four hardest-hit balls in the game, both for groundouts, grounded into a double play to end the inning.

With such outstanding pitching, such limited offense, and a runner on second to begin every inning, the Tigers simply struck first for the win. Derek Hill provided a run-scoring walk-off double to end the contest in the eleventh.

The Brewers look to split the two-game series and bump up their magic number of five tomorrow afternoon, 12:10 CT in Detroit.