Brewers look to forge through frustrating stretch

MILWAUKEE -- Andrew McCutchen waved at a changeup to end a 12-pitch battle in the fifth inning and broke his bat in the dirt next to home plate. When Rowdy Tellez popped out in the eighth, he smashed his helmet into two pieces.

It was that kind of homestand for the Brewers.

Once again unable to gain any run separation, Milwaukee put pressure on its bullpen and the bullpen cracked. Trevor Gott surrendered a pair of home runs in the sixth to turn a one-run lead into a one-run deficit in what became an 8-6 loss at American Family Field on Sunday afternoon, and the Brewers fell for the fourth time in six games against the Cubs and Pirates over a frustrating final homestand prior to the All-Star break.

“Unfortunately, we’ve made it hard on the back end of the bullpen,” manager Craig Counsell said Saturday night in the wake of a loss with a similar storyline. “We’ve played a ton of tight games lately. Those guys have been so, so good in all these games all year.

“We’re just having a hard time getting some space in games.”

The last time the Brewers really got some space was in a 19-2 romp over the Pirates at PNC Park on July 1. Since then, they have scored 28 runs in eight games, an average of 3.5 runs.

“We have traffic every game, even the games we don’t really score,” Christian Yelich said this weekend. “It’s because we’re missing the big hit, that two-out hit, the one that breaks it open with the bases loaded. We just haven’t been able to get it across. I don’t know how you really explain it. Sometimes it just works that way. There are some tough losses sometimes.”

Sunday qualified as a tough loss in all kinds of ways. The Pirates scored their first run with three consecutive two-out singles off Eric Lauer in the second inning that left the bat at 70.8 mph, 73.3 mph and 69.1 mph. They were gifted a 2-0 lead in the third inning when Brewers catcher Pedro Severino missed a Lauer pitch just off the plate for a run-scoring passed ball. Then came the home runs.

Ke’Bryan Hayes (off Lauer in the fifth) and Michael Chavis (off Gott in the sixth) each hit short-porch solo home runs into the party area in right field. Hayes’ homer traveled a Statcast-projected 361 feet. Chavis’ went 365 feet. Only Oneil Cruz really got into one; his go-ahead home run off Gott traveled 416 feet.

“Sometimes it’s how baseball goes. Sometimes it’ll be like that,” Lauer said. “It’s one of those things where it’s just the game. You’ve got to deal with it. You’ve got to worry about the things you can control. Once the ball leaves my hands, I can’t really control anything that happens.”

Of dropping consecutive series to losing teams, Lauer said, “We’ve got to make sure we’re playing good baseball, make sure we’re putting forth our attitude and effort and make sure we’re staying in ballgames. There’s a few times where it seems like we’re getting a little hung up on things, and we’ve just got to be better about that.”

Offensively, Willy Adames and Jonathan Davis each scored two runs, Luis Urías drove in a pair and McCutchen hit a two-run home run in the bottom of the ninth.

Unfortunately for Milwaukee, it was too late. Daniel Vogelbach had blasted a three-run homer in the top of the ninth off Chi Chi González to give the Pirates the sort of separation that has eluded the Brewers of late. The Crew's relievers have a 1.55 WHIP in July, which ranked 24th in MLB as of Sunday evening.

“I think every game is an individual story. We gave up some runs today,” Counsell said. “Trevor gave up a couple of homers, obviously, and then we couldn’t get out of the ninth. We were at the point with the rest of the guys where I wasn’t going to use them in a ‘down’ game. That’s kind of where we’re at today.”

The Brewers needed more hits to avoid being behind when those late-inning decisions came about. When he was asked about the offense on Saturday, McCutchen’s diagnosis was to “keep playing.”

“If it was easy, we’d all be doing it, right?” he said. “There’s a very small percentage of us that goes out there and tries to play the game and play it well. Sometimes you have dry spells. That’s just the game when you play 162 games. Even the Yankees got no-hit.

“We all understand it within the clubhouse, everyone on this team. You just have to go out there and try to get the job done.”