MILWAUKEE -- The Brewers made a splash Tuesday with the news that they’re promoting top pitching prospect Jacob Misiorowski, but they know that pitching isn’t the problem. When the Brewers have hit the skids this season, it’s usually a lack of slug that has held them back.
And it’s slug that powered a 4-1 win over the Braves at American Family Field, with Jackson Chourio’s two-run home run and Jake Bauers’ long solo shot backing a quality start from Quinn Priester, who is pitching like he doesn’t want to be the one to make way for Misiorowski’s arrival in the rotation.
Those home runs were some welcome thump after what had been a quiet start to the longest homestand of Milwaukee’s season, a 10-game test against the Padres, Braves and Cardinals (who will draw Misiorowski in the righty prospect’s Major League debut on Thursday). The Brewers dropped three of the first four games of their homestand while scoring one run and collecting only two extra-base hits -- rookie third baseman Caleb Durbin’s walk-off home run on Saturday night against San Diego, and a Joey Ortiz double that set up the Brewers’ only run in a loss to the Braves on Monday.
“To be honest,” Chourio said via translator Daniel de Mondesert, “I think this offense has a lot more to show than what we’ve done so far. I think we played a good game today, and we’ve played some good games recently, but I think we’ve got more offensively than what we’ve shown.”
But Tuesday was a different kind of night, beginning in the third inning, when Ortiz singled ahead of Chourio’s 11th home run of the season for a 2-0 Brewers lead, and William Contreras made it back-to-back extra-base hits with a double. It was the first time in 10 days that the Brewers tallied multiple extra-base hits in the same inning, since Bauers and Durbin doubled in the top of the seventh on June 1 in Philadelphia.
Three innings later, Bauers made it 3-1 with a solo homer to straightaway center field that sailed a Statcast-projected 434 feet.
It wasn’t exactly a hitting spree, but it was something for the Brewers, who improved to 26-13 when they homer versus 10-19 when they don’t. The trick is doing that more often, since the Brewers rank 24th in the Majors with 61 home runs and 27th with a .361 slugging percentage. There have been only five seasons in franchise history in which the Brewers finished with a slugging percentage lower than that, and the most recent instance was in 1976.
“You almost hate to talk about it because homers are thrown,” Brewers manager Pat Murphy said. “It’s really hard having guys get up there trying to do more than they can. Usually homers are hit when guys aren’t thinking, ‘Yeah, I’m trying to hit a homer.’”
They’re more likely to step to home plate aiming to hit a ball hard. In that, Bauers argued, the Brewers have been doing a better job than the box scores indicate.
“You look up at the exit velos and a lot of them are 95 [mph] plus,” Bauers said. “Not a lot to show for it after that, but that just tells me we’re hitting the ball hard and it’s not falling our way right now.”
It only takes a little offense to win with the way the Brewers have been pitching, including young arms like 24-year-old Priester, who allowed one run on seven hits in six innings and matched a season high with seven strikeouts while making his first start since May 24. He’d pitched twice since then behind an opener.
In seven outings since getting roughed up by the Cubs on May 2, Priester owns a 2.35 ERA over 38 1/3 innings.
“The kid has just been getting better and better,” Murphy said. “When we first got him [in an April trade with the Red Sox], he wasn’t where he is today. Another credit to the pitching coach staff and other pitchers for helping him to get better.”
Abner Uribe followed with two scoreless innings and Trevor Megill breezed through his 13th save. Uribe’s outing included some trickery; after an eight-pitch seventh, he was asked to get the first two hitters of the eighth. When he retired them both and looked into the dugout, Murphy asked for one more batter. When Matt Olson doubled and Uribe looked to the dugout again, Murphy asked for one more. Uribe retired Marcell Ozuna to end a seventh consecutive scoreless outing.
“They’ve done an incredible job out there,” Chourio said of the Brewers’ pitching, “and it’s been a tremendous help for us as a team. They’ve been great.”