Peralta's long 4th inning, quiet bats sink Brewers

CLEVELAND -- For five innings on Saturday, Brewers starter Freddy Peralta walked a tightrope. In the third inning, he allowed a leadoff single before getting out of the jam with a 5-4-3 double play. An inning later, he only allowed one run in a bases loaded, no out situation.

That tightrope finally broke in the sixth inning -- even if he wasn’t around to see it happen.

After surrendering back-to-back hits to open the inning, Peralta was pulled for Hoby Milner who allowed the game-tying and go-ahead hits in the Brewers’ 4-2 loss.

“He lost command a little bit in the fourth but did a great job,” Brewers manager Craig Counsell said. “They only scored one run. He did a good job getting through it.”

Peralta’s fourth-inning struggles continue his recent trend of having an outing undone by a long inning, as he allowed two runs in 28-pitch inning his last start along with allowing a four-run inning to the A’s on June 11.

After Saturday's game, Peralta said he was frustrated with his inability to limit long innings.

“It’s hard when you’re feeling good and then you run into a bad inning,” he said. “It’s part of the process.”

Peralta started the sixth inning strong by getting Amed Rosario down to a 1-2 count, but Rosario managed to force a full count before lining a fastball back up the middle for a single. José Ramírez chased Peralta a pitch later with a single.

“He’s a tough out,” Peralta said of Ramírez. “I didn’t think he would swing on the first pitch but he hit that fastball. Great hitter.”

Milner surrendered the lead a batter later on a Naylor single before David Fry gave the Guardians a lead with a two-out single.

“I thought Hoby made a good pitch to Naylor,” Counsell said. “It just got through.”

That tough inning came on a day when the Milwaukee's offense continued its month-long slump. The Brewers came into Saturday’s game with the third-worst team batting average in June (.218), and dropped to 4-31 in games where they score three runs or less.

“We, unfortunately, didn’t do a good job at creating activity,” Counsell said. “[Christian Yelich] did a good job getting on base a bunch and that got us a couple runs, but not a lot of activity.”

Yelich, who scored both the Brewers’ runs, had one of the Milwaukee's four hits, all of which were singles. That doesn’t mean that there aren’t signs of life, however. Willy Adames broke out with a two-home run game on Friday. Brian Anderson had a 107 mph single. And, the arguably most important sign of improvement, Rowdy Tellez had three strong at-bats, even if he didn’t get anything to show for it.

Prior to the game, Counsell spoke about how Tellez needed to take advantage when he got pitches to hit, and he did that Saturday in the form of a 107.5 mph groundout (that had an expected batting average of .560) and a 103.8 mph liner that Fry misplayed in right field that allowed Yelich to score and Tellez to take second base.

“He’s a guy who needs to drive the ball; that’s where a lot of his offense comes from,” Counsell said of Tellez before the game. “He’s the type of hitter where it tends to come in bunches."

"One of the things with him is that he’s got to fire on the pitches he’s got to hit. You only get so many pitches you can do damage with against Major League pitchers, and you’ve got to do something with those.”

Milwaukee's second run came in the third inning when Yelich walked, stole second and came home on an RBI single from William Contreras -- a type of sequence that has been few and far between for the Brewers lately. As his Brewers continue to look for answers at the plate, Counsell wants their main focus to be trying to stay as consistent as possible.

“That’s baseball,” he said when asked about the slump. “You’re going to go through bad stretches and you’ve got to keep having good at-bats.”