Brewers finally make good on a Corbin Burnes gem with a win over Marlins
Curt Hogg
MIAMI - It was a pitching matchup that lived up to its billing.
Fortunately for the Milwaukee Brewers, someone not named Pablo López had to eventually take the mound for the Miami Marlins.
After López and Brewers starting pitcher Corbin Burnes took turns stifling bats on a humid evening at loanDepot Park on Friday evening for seven innings, Milwaukee finally found a sliver of offense late to emerge with a 2-1 win.
Jace Peterson's bases-loaded walk against reliever Anthony Bender provided the run the Brewers needed and had been searching for since Kolten Wong's leadoff homer.
Milwaukee loaded the bases with nobody out off Tanner Scott to kick off the inning as Christian Yelich singled and Luis Urías was hit by a pitch. Tyrone Taylor pinch-hit for Rowdy Tellez and drove a ball to the base of the wall, but Yelich was only able to advance one base with a quick carom back to rightfielder Jesús Sánchez.
Bender entered and the power-throwing righty struck out Hunter Renfroe on three hard sinkers but lost the zone to Peterson and issued a four-pitch walk to plate Yelich.
Josh Hader locked down the save with a perfect ninth inning for his 13th save in as many appearances, breaking the MLB record for consecutive games with a save to start a season.
Devin Williams picked up the win with a clean, efficient eighth inning, a much-needed outing after throwing a season-high 38 pitches Tuesday, his last time out.
The Brewers made good on another strong start from Burnes, who allowed one run over seven innings to drop his earned run average to 1.77 in the process.
Milwaukee had dropped each of the reigning National League Cy Young winner's three previous starts despite him allowing a total of three earned runs over 19⅔ innings. His 10 runs of support entered the day as the third-fewest of any NL starter.
Burnes had to be sharp once again and, to little surprise, he was en route to delivering his sixth consecutive quality start. He matched Lopez’s seven innings, striking out seven and allowing five hits with no walks. It was Burnes’ fourth start this season of seven innings on the dot.
The lone blemish on his line was a solo homer by former Brewers first baseman Jesús Aguilar on a two-out, two-strike pitch in the third. Burnes left a sinker up and out over the heart of the plate and Aguilar deposited it over the fence in left-center.
Burnes locked in from there, facing the minimum the rest of the way before exiting the game with 95 pitches.
Some crisp defense came to Burnes’ aid early. Centerfielder Lorenzo Cain chased down a long fly in the gap to his right off the bat of Sánchez to lead off the second, then following a Brian Anderson single, a Luis Urías made a diving stop to start an inning-ending double play.
Lopez set a career-high with 11 strikeouts, nine of which came against his vaunted changeup, as he cruised through the middle innings. Following Cain’s two-out double in the second, he retired 15 straight batters, striking out 10 of them.
After that second pitch of the game, the Brewers failed to put the leadoff man on base until Yelich in the ninth and, before that, generated just two hits and one at-bat with a runners in scoring position.
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