Woodruff confident Crew will 'get rolling'

Could somebody buy Brandon Woodruff a little run support?

Topping out at 98.5 mph, throwing five types of pitches for strikes and getting swings and misses on four of them, Woodruff continued one of the best starts to a season in Brewers history on Tuesday night at Kauffman Stadium. He breezed into the eighth inning of a scoreless game only to see it all slip away on a walk and a hit by pitch before his exit, then a disputed play at the plate and a run-scoring error while he watched from the dugout as the Brewers fell to the Royals, 2-0.

“I feel like we’ve been pressing all season, honestly,” veteran outfielder Lorenzo Cain said. “I’m kind of running out of words to say, it’s getting tough. We just have to keep grinding. We’ve got to score some runs because our pitching has been lights out. It just hasn’t been good enough.”

A 21-minute rain relay right in the middle of Woodruff’s second inning of work?

No problem.

Some Brewers runs?

In an American League game, that wasn’t Woodruff’s department. But it’s been a big problem.

Coming off scoring a season-high 10 runs in Sunday’s win over the Braves, the Brewers got Christian Yelich back from the injured list, but they were held to one hit across the first six innings by Royals left-hander Kris Bubic and three hits all night in their fifth shutout loss this season. The frustration peaked with two outs and two strikes in the ninth inning, when Avisaíl García was ejected for reacting to a strike on a check swing, manager Craig Counsell was tossed, too, and Daniel Vogelbach came in cold in a 2-2 count before going down swinging to end the game.

It’s been that kind of season for Woodruff. There are 67 pitchers in the Majors with enough innings to qualify for an ERA title. Woodruff had the worst run support per nine innings of any of them -- 1.58 runs per nine innings.

“I'm not going to blame anybody because I know how hard this game is,” Woodruff said. “It's hard hitting. I've experienced it. Hitting against this caliber of guys is hard. We've got a really good team. We're in a little bit of a funk right now. Every team goes through it and you never know when you're going to bounce out of it. I feel like I say this every single year, but we'll get rolling. We're not out of this thing by any stretch.”

It makes for outings in which Woodruff must be close to perfect, which he was for most of Tuesday night. He’d only used 82 pitches to get through seven scoreless innings and the Royals’ approach was apparent all night: See a strike, swing at it. Woodruff needed only five pitches for a scoreless first inning. He threw only four pitches in the seventh, when Kelvin Guiterrez singled with one out for his second hit of the night, but he was erased on a first-pitch double play.

Woodruff was one out away from a spotless eighth when he walked Whit Merrifield on four pitches. Counsell made a mound visit, but he left Woodruff in to face Carlos Santana. Woodruff thought his first-pitch sinker was a strike, but it was called a ball below the zone. That forced Woodruff to try a four-seamer up and in. It hit Santana on the arm.

So, Counsell made the change to Devin Williams, who hung a changeup for Andrew Benintendi’s single to right field. García fired a good throw home and judging from Woodruff’s reaction in the dugout, he thought the Brewers were out of the inning. Home-plate umpire Brian Gorman disagreed, calling Merrifield safe. Milwaukee challenged to no avail.

“It’s no point arguing because it’s a waste of energy,” Cain said.

It became a 2-0 deficit when Salvador Perez hit a routine ground ball to shortstop and Luis Urías aired a wild throw for his second error of the night, fourth in the last two games and his ninth in 38 games this season.

Woodruff fell to 2-2 despite a sparkling 1.58 ERA, third best in franchise history for a pitcher through eight outings when all of them are starts. Only current Royals pitching coach Cal Eldred (1.46 ERA through eight starts in 1992) and Zach Davies (1.54 in 2019) have started a season better.

Had the replay gone the other way, Woodruff would sit atop that list. His ERA was 1.42 before Kansas City scored its first run.

“I don't want to be selfish in any way,” Woodruff said. “We lost. It comes down to winning. We'll get it going soon. Hopefully, as a staff we continue to throw the baseball well and continue to do our jobs.

“We're too good of a team to stay in this position. Once our bats come awake, we're going to become a dangerous team.”