Brewers enjoy pregame snack with fans before dramatic win

MILWAUKEE – Katie Manno is a baseball mom and amateur baker from Pewaukee, Wis., who never expected those two loves to intertwine in the way they did outside American Family Field on Saturday.

Brewers players surprised fans by making a loop of the lots at peak tailgating time prior to their 1-0 win over the Reds, giving Manno an opportunity to provide the likes of super-rookie Jackson Chourio -- who, at 20, is only seven years older than her twin boys -- a pregame snack.

“We were totally surprised,” said Manno – no relation to former Brewers assistant GM Bruce Manno. “I turned around and my husband said, ‘That’s William Contreras!’ We were just hanging out and we were amazed to see them come through. I thought, well, they’re giving us shirts, so we should give them some cookies.”

For the record, her drop sugar cookies with sprinkles were the biggest hit with players. It was a little different in the days of yore, when hard-playing, hard-partying Brewers like Gorman Thomas and Pete Vuckovich were known to stop by tailgates after games to drink beers with fans.

But the current Brewers do have a similarly close connection to fans, thanks to folksy, first-year manager Pat Murphy and an eclectic roster with a host of first- and second-year players like rookie right-hander Tobias Myers, who earned a standing ovation after setting a career high with nine strikeouts in 7 1/3 scoreless innings on Saturday, and veterans like Rhys Hoskins, who provided the run both teams had been looking for all night when he connected off Reds reliever Tony Santillan for a two-out home run in the eighth inning.

Hoskins’ 20th homer sailed over the Brewers’ bullpen, where closer Devin Williams was warming for what would be his first save of his injury-shortened season. After he went three up, three down with three strikeouts, the Brewers climbed a season-high 18 games over .500 with their fifth victory in a row.

This one looked a little different. In the first four games of this winning streak, the Brewers scored 42 runs on 59 hits, including 10 home runs. On Saturday, they won with a run on two hits.

“It started with Tobias shutting them down through seven,” Williams said. “[Joel] Payamps did his job shutting them down and then I followed. We’re not always going to score eight. We have to win in a multitude of ways, and today was a different kind of game for us.”

Myers and Reds starter Nick Martinez were responsible for that, trading quick zeroes for the first seven innings of a game that lasted two hours and three minutes, making it Milwaukee’s snappiest home game all season.

“I felt like I never left the mound,” Myers said. “The guys have been putting up so many runs. You can’t expect that every night.”

Typically a slow starter, Myers came out of the bullpen with his good fastball ready. His six strikeouts in the first three innings matched his high from his first 17 Major League appearances, and he had eight strikeouts by the end of the fourth.

Martinez was just as tough, pitching seven scoreless innings for the Reds. Finally, Hoskins broke through in the eighth with his latest high-impact home run.

What did Hoskins think about reaching the 20-homer plateau?

“It’s a nice round number and a good benchmark, but I think it was more to do with in my heart knowing that there’s more,” he said.

It’s been a grind to get this far. Hoskins missed last season with a knee injury before signing a free agent deal with the Brewers, looking to re-establish his value. Then he spent time on the injured list in May with a hamstring strain.

“You can say whatever you want about taking a year off and then coming back,” said Murphy. “Then you get the hamstring [injury] and after the hamstring he doesn’t seem like himself, but this kid just comes up big.”

Hoskins called it a “good win” on a good day that began with fans out in the parking lots. He hadn’t experienced a baseball tailgate since his boyhood in Northern California, and briefly considered a pregame snack.

“I almost grabbed a brat,” Hoskins said, “but it was maybe a little too close to the game.”

For Manno and her family, it was a day to remember.

“My twin boys love baseball,” she said. “They’re 13 and they’ve been playing since they were 7 or 8, and their dream is to play college baseball and then go on. I keep telling them to stay in school, just in case.”