LOS ANGELES -- Every time it looked like the Dodgers were coming back on Saturday, the Brewers had a response. They answered every rally, every hit, every home run in every inning.
“It’s character revealing,” manager Pat Murphy said. “Just like a bunch of woodpeckers. You keep pecking away until they say the game’s over.”
The Brewers kept pecking their way to an 8-7 victory at Dodger Stadium, clinching the season series and extending their winning streak to nine.
Over these nine consecutive wins, the Brewers have outscored their opponents 50-21. Five of the wins have come against the Dodgers.
Through their first four matchups, the Brew Crew held the defending World Series champions to four total runs. That script was flipped when the Dodgers scored four runs in the bottom of the third inning off Freddy Peralta on Saturday, erasing what had been a 4-0 Milwaukee lead.
But Peralta -- just like his offense -- kept pecking away.
He responded to the four-spot in the third with eight consecutive outs -- the lone baserunner a two-out walk in the fifth inning -- finishing his outing with the four earned runs on five hits with three walks and four strikeouts. The offense came through, with Isaac Collins launching a homer to lead off the top of the fourth. That was enough to qualify Peralta for his seventh consecutive win (the most by a Brewer since Cal Eldred in 1992) and his MLB-leading 12th of the season.
“When I finished the third inning, I was comfortable in the moment,” Peralta said. “I just focused on keeping pitching at least two more innings. Because I knew that how we’ve been playing, how the offense has been putting all the work together, I knew that they had my back.”
They added another run in the sixth after Collins led off the inning with a walk. He proceeded to steal second, and was brought home one pitch later on an RBI double from Caleb Durbin. The Dodgers again responded in the bottom half of the sixth with another run to make it a one-run game, but the Brewers still had an answer as they put up a run on four singles in the top of the seventh.
Joey Ortiz capped off the night in the eighth inning with a 414-foot solo shot that landed in the left-field bullpen. That eighth run proved to be the difference in the game as the Dodgers rallied with two home runs in the bottom of the inning to make it a one-run ballgame.
“You never want to slow down til the game’s over,” Ortiz said. “You want to keep hitting all the way through nine, keep scoring as much as we can. We know the Dodgers are a really good team. They put up four in one inning, so they can punch back at any moment.
“We were just trying to stay ahead and take good swings.”
Through this midseason turnaround, the Brewers are playing with a sense of belief. An air of confidence that somebody -- anybody -- can come through for the team at any given moment.
It’s a belief that was maybe hard to find at the beginning of the season when the Brewers got off to a 25-28 start.
“When we lost early and we weren’t very good early … people were like, ‘God, are we really trying to win?’” Murphy said. “They just didn’t really understand, a lot of these guys. … And I could see that disappointment in them. They wanted to win.
“And that’s what’s cool, what’s unique about this is that while there's not a lot of big names, there’s a bunch of guys who are hungry. And still hungry.”
Just over a month ago, Andrew Vaughn was optioned and traded from the White Sox to the Brewers. He was called up 12 days ago. On Saturday, he reached base three times and drove in two runs.
Durbin, who was acquired over the offseason from the Yankees in the Devin Williams trade, was optioned during Spring Training before being recalled just before the regular season started. Through the first two games of this series, he’s hit three extra base hits -- including a home run -- with three RBIs.
“They’re hungry,” Murphy said. “Like I’ve said in the past, hungry players can do some special things.”