MILWAUKEE — In a possible postseason matchup featuring pitching aces from both teams, the Brewers bested the Braves 2-1 on Friday afternoon at American Family Field in front of a crowd of 40,130.
Braves left-hander Chris Sale allowed two runs — both in the third inning — in his six innings of work. All eight hits that Sale (12-9) allowed were singles. He walked none, induced 15 whiffs, got 17 called strikes and threw 94 pitches.
Sale has now lost his last three starts despite being charged a total of six earned runs.
“I’m pretty black and white. I like to win. I really don’t care about other numbers. I don’t care how it gets done. If I gave up nine runs and we win the game, I’d be in a whole helluva lot better mood than I am right now,” Sale said. “This game really only matters if you win. There’s two stats that every team cares about.
“You can hit .350. You can have a one-and-a-half ERA. You can have all the strikeouts. You can have all the home runs. If you’re not winning, you’re not having fun. It’s what we all show up for. So, for me — maybe to a fault — I like winning, and when we come up short, it doesn’t matter what the other numbers say. It’s not a good night.”
Brewers’ right-hander Jacob Misiorowski threw six scoreless innings and worked around four hits and two walks. The flamethrower struck out six, got 14 whiffs and 13 called strikes during his 96-pitch outing.
The Braves had beaten Misiorowski on June 19 when they scored two runs off him in a 3-2 victory at Truist Park.
“Obviously tough,” Braves outfielder Mike Yastrzemski said about facing Misiorowski. “When you got a guy that has stuff like that, you’re probably never gonna string five or six hits together. It was about trying to work some walks, get on base somehow, force an error. He threw really well, and they played some great defense behind him. Sometimes it falls that way.”
After both the starters retired for the day, the Braves put together a rally in the seventh with runners at the corners and two outs. Michael Harris II, facing right-hander reliever Antonio Senzatela, shot a single down the line in left, cutting the deficit to 2-1.
Ozzie Albies drew a five-pitch walk to load the bases. Mauricio Dubón, who leads the team with 29 RBIs with two outs and runners in scoring position, hit a 1-1 cutter right on the screws but into the glove of Luis Lara in right field.
Yastrzemski hit a two-out single off Brewers closer Trevor Megill in the ninth to get the tying run to the plate in the form of Ronald Acuña Jr. After pinch-runner Lane Thomas stole second, Acuña struck out, giving Megill his 24th save of the season.
The Braves (75-54) fell to 19-19 in one-run games, have now lost 6 of 8 and have scored 10 total runs in the last five games.
“Probably just a little bit of trust in each other, a little bit of relaxation, not trying to do so much,” Yastrzemski said about trying to get the offense going. “I think when you get in those moments, you’re trying to hit a six-run homer, and it’s not possible, right? So it’s about taking a good at bat and moving on to the next one.
“One of the things is when you win an at-bat, you got to be happy about that. Whether it’s a walk, whether you just hit a ball hard. You gotta take the positive out of every at bat that you can, and just start stringing those together one after the other.”
The Brewers (80-49) got to Sale first, stringing together three singles, the last of which came off the bat of William Contreras and went just out of reach of Sale’s glove before rolling through the middle for an RBI hit. Cleanup hitter Andrew Vaughn doubled the Brewers’ lead by hitting a slow-roller to shortstop and beating out the relay throw from second on what could have been a double play.
That turned out to be the decisive run.
“Tough one, man,” Sale said. “This is a game of inches. It’s one of those things, we have a couple balls go this way for us, a couple that way for them, seems like a different ballgame. But definitely wearing this one off the chin.”
In the fifth, Misiorowski (13-5) issued a one-out walk to Dominic Smith and a two-out walk to Yastrzemski, but Acuña grounded out weakly to shortstop to end the inning.
Misiorowski showed signs of slowing in the sixth when Matt Olson hit a 105-mph line drive to deep center that Lara, who started the game in center field, tracked down with a leaping catch before crashing into the wall. Harris hit a ball 110 mph off the bat that went for a double into the right field gap, but Ozzie Albies ended the inning with a fly out to right.
With the victory, the Brewers became baseball’s first 80-win team.