Woodruff (12 K's) helps Crew win with 1 run

MILWAUKEE -- From “disgrace” -- that’s Brandon Woodruff’s word, not ours -- to dominant.

And from a 19-run output one game to winning with a single run the next.

“What a crazy game it is,” Woodruff said.

Furious at himself in the wake of another abbreviated start last weekend at Cleveland, Woodruff led the Brewers into a crucial final homestand by matching his career high with 12 strikeouts over seven sensational innings of a 1-0 win over the Cubs on Friday night at Miller Park.

• Box score

It was the ninth 1-0 walk-off in Brewers history and the first since 5-foot-8 outfielder Caleb Gindl beat the Marlins with his first career homer in 2013. If that was unexpected, so was Friday. The Brewers were coming off a 19-0 win at Detroit in which they banged out 21 hits and set a franchise record with 13 extra-base hits.

Two days later, it took a double, three singles, three walks and Ryan Braun’s sacrifice fly off former teammate Jeremy Jeffress in the bottom of the ninth inning to beat the Cubs.

The wins count the same, and they have lifted the Brewers within four games of the National League Central-leading Cubs and within one game of the second-place Cardinals. The top two teams in each division make the postseason this year, plus two NL Wild Card teams.

“If we can find a way to sneak into this postseason,” Braun said, “I certainly wouldn’t want to face [Woodruff] and Corbin [Burnes] in the first two games of a series.”

Woodruff pitched as if he were trying to match Burnes’ performance from two days earlier in Detroit, and he did so with remarkable precision. Burnes allowed no runs on one hit and no walks with 11 strikeouts in that blowout of the Tigers. Woodruff allowed no runs on one hit and no walks with 12 strikeouts in a duel with Jon Lester.

It was a bounce-back for Woodruff, who’d been felled during the fifth inning in a number of his starts this season, including an outing five days earlier against the Indians, when the right-hander declared, “I’m still doing OK, but not getting through five innings is kind of a disgrace.”

On Friday, the only baserunner the Woodruff allowed in the fifth inning was a hit batsman, Victor Caratini. The inning otherwise featured three called strikeouts by plate umpire Manny Gonzalez. In the sixth, Ian Happ collected the Cubs’ only hit off Woodruff, a shift-beating single. The Cubs put another man aboard in the inning, but Woodruff preserved the scoreless tie with a foul popup and a grounder to first base.

For a glimpse of Woodruff’s really good stuff, see the seventh inning. He threw 11 pitches. Six were four-seam fastballs, including the final pitch to all three batters he faced. David Bote looked at a 96.9 mph strike three. Jason Heyward fanned at a 97.3 mph strike three. Caratini looked at a 96.7 mph strike three.

With that, Woodruff had his seventh called strikeout of the night and his 12th strikeout overall, matching the career high he set June 23 last season against the Reds on the way to the National League All-Star team.

“That dude's stuff is incredible,” Lester said. “He should be a fixture in baseball as a dominant pitcher for a long time. To match zeros with him, give our team a chance, I mean, that's all you can really do in games like that when a guy's on like that.”

Said Cubs manager David Ross: “That's a No. 1 starter. That's a real ace.”

The difference, Woodruff said, was simple: strike one.

“It's not that I've been pitching bad, I just wasn't pitching the way I want to, and tonight I got back to who I am,” Woodruff said. “I think the biggest difference was a little bit of a mentality change.”

Of the called strikeouts, Woodruff said, “It's great if they swing and miss, but if they're looking, it tells you as a pitcher that you're mixing it up really well and you've got them guessing. It's definitely a good sign.”

When Devin Williams and Josh Hader delivered more scoreless work in Woodruff’s wake, all the Brewers needed was a run. They got it in the bottom of the ninth.

Christian Yelich walked to salvage a night that began with three swinging strikeouts. He then took third on Jedd Gyorko's single and scored easily when Braun greeted Jeffress by muscling an inside pitch in the air to right field.

“It was unlikely we were going to score 19 again,” Braun said, “but it was nice to be able to find a way to win a game with one.”