Dominant early, Woodruff fades in loss to NY
NEW YORK -- For six innings on Monday, right-hander Brandon Woodruff showed why he was named to the National League All-Star team, but he ran out of gas by the seventh inning in the Brewers’ 4-2 loss to the Mets at Citi Field.
Milwaukee has now lost two consecutive games. It’s the Brewers' first losing streak since they dropped five in a row from June 14-18. Shortstop Willy Adames said it’s not the end of the world; in fact, he remains optimistic about the Brewers.
“I don’t even think [about the losing streak]. Never,” Adames said.
Through six innings, Woodruff allowed just one hit and threw only 64 pitches with the score tied at 1. His sinker made him almost unhittable, but things got away from him when he went through the Mets' lineup a third time, and he allowed three runs on three hits in the seventh inning. Pete Alonso opened the scoring with a two-run double and Michael Conforto followed with an RBI single before Woodruff was taken out of the game in favor of Miguel Sánchez.
“I started catching too much plate during the last couple of hitters,” Woodruff said. “[The Mets] were able to put some good wood [on the ball]. That’s what they were supposed to do in that situation. I ran into some trouble that way. I was just catching too much of the plate."
At first it looked as though Woodruff was en route to his eighth win of the season. He got off to a great start by retiring the first six hitters he faced, five of them on strikeouts.
To top it off, he was given a 1-0 lead in the top of the fourth inning, when batterymate Omar Narváez hit a solo homer off Mets right-hander Tylor Megill.
Woodruff gave up his first hit of the game in the fourth inning, when he allowed a leadoff double to Brandon Nimmo, who scored on a game-tying sacrifice fly by Dominic Smith. Woodruff went on to retire the next seven hitters before running into trouble.
"Today was a little tough at the start because Woody … threw the ball [great] today,” Alonso said. “It's just late in the game, we were able to put together a lot of championship ABs, and we came out on top. But for the first six innings, Woody had some really great stuff. He had some All-Star-quality stuff tonight."
When the Mets started to rally in the seventh, Woodruff tried to slow the game, but he left the ball in the middle of the plate.
“Those are the tough ones, because everything was going so well through six innings and then it kind of ended on a sour note,” Woodruff said. “You try to make a pitch. I wasn’t able to do that. I threw the one over the middle to Alonso. Then one down the middle to Conforto. That was pretty much it. There were a ton of positives for the night for me. I just have to move on and get ready for the next one.”
The game may have ended in a loss, but the Brewers showed they don’t give up easily. In the ninth, the first three hitters -- Adames, Narváez and Tyrone Taylor -- reached base against Mets closer Edwin Díaz, with Taylor closing the gap with an RBI single. But Díaz struck out Jace Peterson for the first out of the inning, worked out of the jam and picked up his 18th save of the season.
“We did give ourselves a chance. We had some really good at-bats in the ninth,” manager Craig Counsell said. “… That 3-2 pitch to Peterson, to me, was the pitch of the game. If we were able to continue that at-bat -- if someone were to get on base -- I think the inning would turn out differently. We gave ourselves a chance, but we have to give ourselves a chance in more innings. That’s the message from tonight.”