Brewers: Adam Lind picks up Crew in 11th for 5th straight win
By Phil Watson
The Milwaukee Brewers completed their first series sweep of the season on Thursday, with Adam Lind’s RBI single in the top of the 11th inning proving to be the game-winner in an 8-7 victory over the Philadelphia Phillies at Citizens Bank Park.
It is the Brewers’ longest winning streak since winning five straight from Aug. 14-19 last year.
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Milwaukee (33-48) banged out 59 hits in the four-game series, scoring 6.6 runs per game.
“It looks to me like we’re playing our baseball again,” second baseman Scooter Gennett told MLB.com. “It reminds me a lot of the first half last year. We’re looking to take that positive energy into the rest of the season and make something happen here.”
Gennett was 7-for-15 in the series after going 2-for-4 on Thursday and has his average up to a season-best .233.
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The Brewers won despite the best efforts of Matt Garza, who allowed four runs in six innings but was still in position for the victory until Jonathan Broxton and Will Smith lost the lead in the seventh.
Milwaukee scored seven runs in the first five innings against right-hander Chad Billingsley, who was making his first start since mid-May.
Jonathan Lucroy opened the 11th with a double off right-hander Luis Garcia (2-3) and went to third on Ryan Braun’s groundout.
Lund followed with a single up the middle to put the Brewers in front 8-7. Francisco Rodriguez worked a 1-2-3 bottom of the 11th to pick up his 18th save. Michael Blazek (5-2), who allowed a hit and a walk while striking out two in the ninth and 10th, picked up the win.
Milwaukee jumped all over Billingsley, getting three in the first inning. Gerardo Parra walked, moved up on Lucroy’s single and scored on Braun’s base hit to left.
Lind followed with a single up the middle to make it 2-0 and after Carlos Gomez hit into a fielder’s choice to put runners at the corner, Aramis Ramirez drove in a run with a sacrifice fly to center.
Gennett walked to lead off the second, moved up to second on a sacrifice by Garza and scored on Parra’s double to right off the glove of first baseman Ryan Howard.
The Phillies (27-54) got on the board in the bottom of the inning when Cody Asche lined his fourth home run of the season to right-center field.
In the top of the third, Ramirez and Jean Segura stroked back-to-back two-out singles and Gennett lined a base hit to right to push the Brewers’ lead out to 5-2.
The Phillies made it 5-4 on Odubel Herrara’s two-run single in the fourth.
Milwaukee got some help taking a 7-4 lead in the fifth. Lind reached on an error by Howard and moved up to second on Billingsley’s wild pitch. Gomez worked a walk and both runners advanced on a slow roller by Ramirez.
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Segura lined a single to right to plate both runners.
But Philadelphia rallied in the seventh. Howard doubled in a run off Broxton before Smith came in and gave up RBI singles to Ben Revere and Freddy Galvis to tie the game.
Broxton was charged with two runs in just a third of an inning as his ERA ballooned to a troubling 7.20. Jeremy Jeffress worked a scoreless eighth, fanning two.
Lucroy was 3-for-6 and Segura went 3-for-5 to spark Milwaukee’s 16-hit attack. Parra, Lind, Ramirez and Gennett each had two hits.
It was just the Brewers’ second sweep in Philadelphia and its first in a four-game series. The Brewers have now won seven straight games at Citizens Bank Park after sweeping a three-game series April 8-10, 2014.
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