Crew falls in G1 after Anderson chased in 4th

PITTSBURGH -- The Brewers got out to an early lead, thanks to Kolten Wong’s sixth career leadoff home run in the first game of Saturday’s seven-inning doubleheader. However, defensive mistakes and a few big innings led to a 14-4 loss to the Pirates at PNC Park.

Despite scoring first, the offense was unable to have the same offensive surge the Pirates did. The Brewers snapped a four-game winning streak and dropped just their second road game of the last 15.

• Box score

Starting pitcher Brett Anderson was able to keep Pittsburgh’s offense at bay for the first two frames. However, things started to slowly unravel for the lefty in the third.

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“There’s no injury,” said manager Craig Counsell about Anderson, who exited his last start early due to a calf cramp. “The third inning was just an inning that happens, unfortunately. They timed two infield hits and [we] couldn’t complete a play with a chance to get out of the inning -- [Willy Adames] almost made a great play but just threw a little wide. That’s just a baseball inning.”

Anderson allowed a leadoff double in the inning to Kevin Newman, the first of his AL/NL-record-tying four on the day. The first out of the inning came two pitches later -- a sacrifice bunt that set up the first of four runs to score during the frame.

The bottom of the fourth inning was more bad news for the Brewers starter. After allowing three consecutive hits -- a single, a double and an RBI single -- Anderson faced one last batter before his outing was over.

The southpaw was still on the hook for one more run, after Jake Cousins took over with one out in the fourth. The 14 runs allowed are Milwaukee's third most this season -- the Brewers gave up 16 runs on May 2 and 15 on April 23.

“We did a nice job offensively, I thought, through the first four innings to put us there and then the game got a little out of hand,” said Counsell. “We gave ourselves a shot, put some runs on the board, gave ourselves a lead and it was one of those games -- baseball happened and we’re down. … We had a couple of plays to maybe keep a couple runs off the board ... we just move on.”