Brewers: Bats bash Crew to season-high 4th straight win
By Phil Watson
The Milwaukee Brewers’ slumbering lumber has awakened at Citizens Bank Park, as the Crew pounded out a season-high 17 hits Wednesday night en route to a 9-5 win over the Philadelphia Phillies.
That was two days after the Brewers (32-48) matched their previous season’s best with 16 hits in a 7-4 victory on Monday.
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With the win on Wednesday, the Brewers accomplished a couple of feats for the first time in awhile. It clinched their third straight series win, the first time Milwaukee has done that in more than a year (since beating the Miami Marlins, Baltimore Orioles and Chicago Cubs in three straight series from May 23-June 1, 2014).
It’s also the Brewers’ first four-game winning streak since they won five straight last Aug. 14-19.
The Brewers teed off on Phillies’ starter Aaron Harang (4-11), banging out eight runs on 14 hits in his five-plus innings on the hill.
“We’ve got some confident hitters right now,” manager Craig Counsell told MLB.com.
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Milwaukee got it going quickly against Harang, scoring twice in the top of the first. Scooter Gennett belted a one-out double and moved to third on Ryan Braun’s flyout.
Adam Lind followed with a two-run homer to right-center, his 12th bomb of the year.
The Brewers doubled the lead in the third. Lind singled with one-out, moved up to second on Carlos Gomez’s base hit, and both runners scored when Aramis Ramirez laced a double to left.
In the fourth, starter Kyle Lohse led off with a single and Gerardo Parra walked. After a force at second left runners at the corners, Braun doubled into right field to chase home two more runs for a 6-0 edge.
Lohse, who won for the second straight start, surrendered a pair of runs in the bottom of the fourth on RBI singles by Odubel Herrera and Freddy Galvis.
Milwaukee finally chased Harang in the sixth. Lohse singled to lead off the inning, Parra moved him up a base with a single and Gennett doubled home both runners, ending Harang’s night.
In the seventh, Philadelphia (27-53) closed the gap with an RBI triple from Cesar Hernandez and a run-scoring double by Maikel Franco that ended Lohse’s night.
Lohse (5-9), allowed four runs on nine hits in 6.1 innings, walking two and striking our four and was also 3-for-4 at the plate. It was just his second career three-hit game, his first since Aug. 22, 2006, when he was with the Cincinnati Reds.
Neal Cotts came on to get the final two outs of the seventh. Jonathan Broxton struck out two in a perfect eighth and Corey Knebel got the final three outs, allowing a run on Franco’s RBI double.
The Brewers added a run in the eighth when Parra greeted reliever Elvis Araujo with a single and Gennett followed with a triple to right.
Besides’s Lohse’s work with the bat, Gennett was 3-for-5 with three RBI to raise his average to .224. Parra was 3-for-4, as well, and Lind, Ramirez and Martin Maldonado all had two hits.
The Brewers are hitting .298/.342/.446 over their last nine games and have gone 7-2 in that stretch, scoring 44 runs and allowing just 29. For the season, they are up to .244/.294/.386.
Of Milwaukee’s 28 games this season with 10 or more hits, six have come in their last 10 games.
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The Brewers will look for their first series sweep of the season Thursday at 5:35 p.m. Central, with Matt Garza (4-10, 5.52 ERA) taking on Chad Billingsley (0-2, 6.75).
Garza is 2-2 with a 1.86 ERA in seven career starts against the Phillies, with 35 strikeouts in 48.1 innings. He was 0-1 in two starts last year, giving up six runs—five earned—in 13.2 innings.
His last time out, Garza gave up four runs in six innings of a 10-4 loss Saturday to the Minnesota Twins at Miller Park.
Billingsley is 2-2 with a 4.53 ERA in nine appearances, seven of them starts, against Milwaukee, with 35 strikeouts in 45.2 innings. He hasn’t faced them since he was 0-1 in two starts while pitching for the Los Angeles Dodgers in 2012, allowing six runs in 12 innings.
Billingsley is coming off the disabled list and hasn’t started since May 15, when he gave up two runs in six innings while taking a no-decision in a 4-3 victory over the Arizona Diamondbacks.
Next: Crew Capitalizes Late To Beat Phillies