Brewers' bats stall again; Moose exits on HBP

SAN DIEGO -- The Brewers’ offense suddenly has gone dormant, and it lost a power bat from the middle of the order Tuesday night at Petco Park.

All-Star candidate Mike Moustakas left the Brewers’ 4-1 loss to the Padres with a left hand bruise in the sixth inning, one inning after he was hit by a pitch. X-rays were negative, manager Craig Counsell said, but how long Moustakas might miss is uncertain.

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“He caught it on his first three fingers,” Counsell said. “Day to day. He was pretty sore coming out. … We’ll give him tomorrow [off] for sure, and we’ll see how it goes from there.”

Moustakas was unavailable to reporters after the game.

The Brewers have scored only one run in the first two games of the three-game series at Petco Park, none against Padres starters. Lefty Joey Lucchesi tossed seven scoreless innings in the opener Monday. In his Major League debut on Tuesday, Logan Allen also kept the Brewers off the scoreboard for seven innings, allowing three hits and two walks while striking out five.

“He threw the ball really well today, kept us off balance the entire game,” center fielder Lorenzo Cain said. “We just couldn’t figure him out. When we did figure him out, he was able to get the pitch he needed to get out of innings. He did a great job, had a cutter going, pretty good changeup, back-foot slider to righties. He mixed up his pitches really well.”

Allen, the Padres’ No. 7 prospect, per MLB Pipeline, had only two clean innings, but he induced three double-play grounders to thwart potential rallies. When Allen departed, the Brewers were on a streak of 19 innings without a run.

“Their pitchers deserve credit, for sure, but we have to do a better job offensively,” Counsell said. “We didn’t do the job offensively. We talk about pressure a lot. And this has been two games where we’ve lacked pressure offensively.”

The Brewers broke the scoreless streak in the eighth when Jesus Aguilar scored on a wild pitch by reliever Trey Wingenter.

“Whoever’s on the mound, we’ve got to go out there and battle, find good pitches to hit,” Cain said. “As a team, we haven’t been doing a great job of that. Hopefully, we can turn things around tomorrow.”

The Brewers still lead the National League Central by a half-game and are a solid sixth in the NL with 362 runs scored, so there’s reason to trust that the offensive lull is temporary. But if that lull ends in the series finale Wednesday -- the Brewers will seek to avoid a sweep -- it will end without Moustakas’ bat.

Leading off the fifth inning, Moustakas was struck by a 91.8 mph fastball from Allen. Moustakas shook his left hand on the way to first base, and head athletic trainer Scott Barringer came onto the field to examine the hand, but Moustakas stayed in the game for the moment.

Moustakas was involved in a pivotal play in the bottom of that inning. With the bases loaded and one out, he made a spectacular diving catch on a line drive off the bat of Eric Hosmer. Moustakas quickly got to his feet and attempted to double off Fernando Tatis Jr. at first base, but the throw across the infield sailed high and Allen scored from third for the first run of the game.

Travis Shaw came in to replace Moustakas in the middle of the sixth. Moustakas did not bat in the top of the inning.

Moustakas, 30, opened the year as the Brewers’ everyday second baseman and ranks second at the position in National League All-Star balloting. He shifted to third base when Shaw spent time on the injured list and has been playing both positions of late. Moustakas is batting .279 with 21 home runs and 45 RBIs in 65 games this season.

The Brewers, now 12-3 in games started by right-hander Brandon Woodruff, had won nine straight with him on the mound. Woodruff didn’t allow a hit until Manny Machado’s infield single in the fourth inning, but the Padres pushed across two runs in the fifth and got two more when Francisco Mejia jacked a 97.8 mph over the heart of the plate on an 0-2 count for a 405-foot home run to right-center field, per Statcast.

“That’s the one pitch I want back,” Woodruff said. “I literally feel like I could have thrown it anywhere besides right there. I tried to throw it higher than high, and I just pulled it down into his wheelhouse.”