Brewers: Matt Garza rocked again, Crew loses 4th straight
By Phil Watson
Milwaukee Brewers right-hander Matt Garza found an interesting way Tuesday night to stop the Crew’s recent trend of allowing huge sixth-inning rallies.
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He just gave up one in the fourth, instead.
The San Francisco Giants scored three runs off the struggling Garza in the fourth inning, including one of their three home runs on the night, and beat the Brewers 6-3 at Miller Park.
For Milwaukee (16-31), it was its fourth straight loss and sixth in its last seven games. The Giants (27-20) won for the second straight game.
Garza (2-7) needed 104 pitches to get through just five innings and allowed five runs on eight hits and three walks while striking out seven and surrendering two home runs. His ERA for the season swelled to an even 6.00.
Corey Knebel gave up San Francisco’s other run when he served up a solo homer to Brandon Belt in the seventh.
The Giants scored single runs in the first—on Hunter Pence’s long home run—and the third before piling up three runs in the fourth.
Joe Panik had an RBI double to give San Francisco a 2-0 lead in the third inning. In the fourth, Brandon Crawford and Gregor Blanco created a run with back-to-back doubles before Matt Duffy skied a homer to center field to put the Giants up 5-0.
Aramis Ramirez got one of the runs back with his sixth home run of the season with two outs in the bottom of the fourth against left-hander Madison Bumgarner (6-2).
The Brewers made Bumgarner—last October’s conquering hero—sweat in the sixth inning. Carlos Gomez led off the inning with a walk and Khris Davis followed with an infield single.
Ryan Braun—named the National League’s co-Player of the Week on Tuesday—doubled home Gomez with a double to left and Ramirez drove in Davis with a sacrifice fly.
But Bumgarner rallied, inducing Jason Rogers to pop up and getting Hector Gomez on a lineout to end the threat.
Santiago Casilla shrugged off two hits in the ninth to record his 13th save for the Giants.
Michael Blazek worked a perfect sixth inning for Milwaukee, fanning one. Knebel gave up the homer to Belt in the seventh, Neal Cotts pitched 1.1 innings, striking out two and allowing a hit, and rookie David Goforth made his major league debut in the ninth.
Goforth recorded two outs, picking off former Brewer Nori Aoki—who was 3-for-5 Tuesday and is 7-for-9 in the series—from second base before getting Pence to fly out to the warning track in left.
When the inning was over, Goforth wasn’t quite ready to lieave the field.
“I think I forgot how many outs there were at the end,” Goforth told MLB.com. “I wanted to stay out there and get another out.”
As for Garza, in the second season of a four-year, $50 million contract, he moved into a tie with Andrew Cashner of the San Diego Padres for the MLB lead with seven losses.
“To be honest with you, I don’t know what’s going on,” Garza told MLB.com. “It’s frustrating. At the same time, it’s just unreal. … It’s frustrating. You have to keep going. You have to keep grinding.”
The Brewers traded right-hander Yovani Gallardo in January and manager Craig Counsell, who worked in the front office before replacing Ron Roenicke on May 4, said it was a strategy the club thought was sound.
“We felt like we could do it with guys that are 2-3-4 starters,” Counsell said. “If you’re going through a five-man rotation over 162 games, maybe you don’t match up well against Madison Bumgarner but you match up well against the other team’s 4 or 5 starter.”
As for the struggles of the two guys at the top of his rotation, Garza and right-hander Kyle Lohse, who was rocked in the sixth inning by the Giants on Memorial Day, Counsell says they are similar but different.
“They are different pitches,” Counsell said. “They have success in different ways. They’re getting stuck at similar points but it’s not the same to me because they do it differently.
“For sure, for Kyle it’s the big inning. It’s the big moment for Matt. We have to figure out how to limit the damage.”
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At 15 games below .500 after just 47 games, another decision the Brewers could soon face is whether or not to pull the ripcord on this current group and start over.
That’s becoming very real.
The Brewers and Giants close out the three-game series Wednesday at 12:40 p.m. from Miller Park.
Right-hander Mike Fiers (1-4, 4.63 ERA) will move up and start on three days’ rest after throwing just 86 pitches Saturday in Atlanta his last time out. The Giants will counter with right-hander Ryan Vogelsong (3-2, 4.60).
Fiers had made one start and one relief appearance against San Francisco in his career and is 0-1 with a 4.32 ERA in 8.1 innings. Vogelsong is 4-3 with a 5.10 ERA in 14 appearances, nine of them starts, covering 54.2 innings against Milwaukee.
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