LOS ANGELES -- Before the Brewers kicked off the unofficial second half of the season at Dodger Stadium on Friday, manager Pat Murphy thought out loud about how he could best utilize his starter Quinn Priester.
“Are we really going to have to think that Priester can go six against this lineup?” Murphy said. “Or are we going to end up getting three out of Priester, and then we’re doing a bullpen game?”
No bullpen game needed. Priester went the full six in dominant fashion, bulldozing his way through the Dodgers lineup as he led the Brewers to a 2-0 win, Milwaukee’s eighth in a row. Priester allowed just three hits and no walks on 77 pitches, striking out the side twice and finishing his outing with 10 punchouts, one away from tying his career high.
After Priester got Tommy Edman to strike out chasing a sinker for the first out of the bottom of the sixth inning, Murphy was ready to pull his starter with a runner on first and Shohei Ohtani due up for the third time.
But he changed his mind.
“I just felt like he deserved it,” Murphy said. “He’s got six innings of shutout going. I just felt like he deserved it and he would grow a lot from doing this.”
Priester got Ohtani to ground into a forceout on a cutter inside for the second out. He then used that same cutter above the zone to get Mookie Betts for the third out, Priester's 10th strikeout of the night.
As he walked off the mound, Priester pumped his fist into his glove and let out a scream. It was his way of showing his manager he was ready to go for another inning if they needed him.
“I was having a lot of fun out there,” Priester said. “It didn’t feel like the stuff was coming down yet. … It was more just me feeling really good, feeling like I had some more in the tank.”
Priester kept the Dodgers’ bats off-balance with a steady mix of his sinker, cutter and slider -- with his sinker velocity up over half a tick from his season average. Paired with the cutter, those two pitches combined for 10 of Priester’s game-leading 12 whiffs on the night.
The pace and efficiency that Priester worked with on Friday was intentional. He and catcher William Contreras had looked at some of his recent starts and identified that whenever he moved slower, he tended to struggle more.
“It was starting to look like the thoughts were creeping back in,” Priester said.
But when he moves faster, the only thing on Priester’s mind is to attack.
“Try and get an out with every single pitch you throw,” he said. “I’m not throwing this pitch to try and steal a strike here. I want you to swing, and I want you out.”
For most of the game, Priester and Dodgers starter Tyler Glasnow were locked in a pitchers' duel, with the hurlers allowing a combined three hits through the first three innings. But the Brewers finally broke through in the top of the fifth inning when Caleb Durbin smoked a double 108.8 mph down the left-field line to bring home Isaac Collins, who reached base on a leadoff walk, for the first run of the game.
Durbin later crushed a solo home run to straightaway center field to double the Brew Crew’s lead.
“It feels good, that’s our team though,” Durbin said of coming through on offense on a night when hits were hard to come by for both teams. “It feels like someone’s going to click every single night. That’s what we’ve been able to do for a while now. It just gives you a lot of confidence as a team that you don’t really have to do too much, you know someone’s going to have that big hit.”
It all goes back to what Murphy’s been preaching: he wants his team to go out and just compete. That’s how they’ve had two eight-game winning streaks this season. That’s how they’ve won 31 of their last 43 games after starting the season 25-28.
That all manifested itself at Chavez Ravine on Friday.
“I did my job tonight,” Priester said. “And then we had everybody come in. [Abner] Uribe, Jared [Koenig], and then Trevor [Megill] to close it out. Great defense as always.
“It’s a team game, and I’m there to do my job until they take the ball out of my hand.”