The Pittsburgh Pirates arrived in Milwaukee in first place in the NL Central with the hope of creating some separation in the standings in their first series of the season against the Brewers.
They accomplished as much but did so at their own expense.
Left-hander Wade Miley pitched five scoreless innings, and Joey Wiemer and Blake Perkins homered as the Brewers beat the Pirates, 5-0, on Saturday afternoon at American Family Field.
It was the fifth consecutive loss for the Pirates (34-35), who dropped below .500 for the first time since May 29. The Pirates slipped to third place in the NL Central, 1 1/2 games behind the Brewers (36-34) and one game behind Cincinnati Reds (36-35).
Pirates starter Mitch Keller (8-3) gave up four runs on five hits and three walks while striking out seven but didn’t get much help from his offense or defense against the Brewers.
“That doesn’t have an effect on anything I’m doing out there,” Keller said on the AT&T SportsNet postgame show. “If we score runs, great. If we don’t, great. I’ve got to keep it at zero. I’m always trying to keep it at zero, no matter what the score is. That has no effect on how I’m going out there.”
Keller ran into trouble in the third, when Victor Caratini hit a leadoff single and Wiemer drilled a 1-0 cutter 366 feet to right field for his 10th home run and a 2-0 Brewers lead. It was the second consecutive game with a homer for Wiemer, who hit the winner off rookie reliever Carmen Mlodzinski in Friday’s 5-4 win over the Pirates.
Christian Yelich followed with a single to left, but Keller struck out Jesse Winker before Connor Joe made a spectacular sliding catch in the right-field corner. Keller then got Rowdy Tellez to fly out to left.
Where Joe’s defense saved a run in the third, it cost the Pirates a pair of runs in the fifth. After Yelich drew a one-out walk and Willy Adames hit a two-out single, Tellez hit a low liner to right field. Joe tried to make a shoestring catch; instead, the ball skipped past him for a two-run double to give the Brewers a 4-0 lead.
“It’s a tough play, a line drive right at him. After watching the replay, it looked like it just went under his glove. He was there and didn’t get his glove down. If he makes it, that’s a heck of a catch. But he was in a position to catch it. It wasn’t like it short-hopped in front of him and was one of those you block and turn it into a single. He made the risk on the play, and it just went underneath his glove.”
Keller, however, shouldered the blame for leaving a full-count fastball over the middle of the plate. Of all his mistakes, that was the pitch that left Keller upset about his performance.
“That’s really the difference in the game, the difference in the outing. If I execute a pitch, who knows what happens?” Keller said. “That’s obviously the one that stings the most.”
The Pirates had little luck against Miley (4-2), whose only hits allowed were a Bryan Reynolds double in the first and a Ke’Bryan Hayes single in the fourth. Miley had four strikeouts against two walks in five innings before being replaced by Peter Strzelecki in the sixth.
“We really couldn’t get anything going off Miley. He kept us off balance,” Shelton said. “Their bullpen came in and did a good job. We’ve got to figure out a way to generate some offense.”
Carlos Santana singled off Strzelecki to start the seventh, and the Brewers turned to lefty reliever Hoby Milner with two outs only for Ji Hwan Bae to reach on an infield single and Mark Mathias to draw a full-count walk to load the bases. Milner, however, got Austin Hedges to pop up to the catcher to escape the jam unscathed.
Shelton said he declined to turn to his bench for a pinch-hitter for Hedges, who is batting .175, because the Pirates were down to lefties Tucupita Marcano, Jack Suwinski and Josh Palacios. The only right-handed hitter available was backup catcher Jason Delay, who struck out with the bases loaded to end Friday’s game.
“We ran into a spot with where our bench was where we’re really left-handed, and that’s a tough left-on-left,” Shelton said. “It’s kind of a function where our roster is right now.”
One positive for the Pirates was the performance of right-hander Roansy Contreras, who retired all six batters he faced in two innings of relief after being shelled for five runs in 1 1/3 innings in a 10-6 loss to the Chicago Cubs on Wednesday at Wrigley Field.
“We’re dealing with a young kid,” Shelton said of the 23-year-old Contreras, the youngest player on the Pirates. “Hopefully, an outing like that, where he’s really efficient through two innings and goes through the heart of their order and was really effective, I hope it’s a confidence boost.”
Lefty Jose Hernandez replaced Contreras in the eighth and struck out the first two batters he faced before Blake Perkins hit a 1-1 changeup 423 feet to left-center for a solo home run and 5-0 Brewers lead.
The Pirates got a leadoff single from Santana off Trevor Megill in the ninth, but Hayes, Suwinski and Bae went down looking at called third strikes to end the game.
Rookie right-hander Luis Ortiz will face Freddy Peralta on Sunday as the Pirates attempt to avoid a second consecutive sweep after dropping three games at the Chicago Cubs to start the road trip.
“Obviously, we don’t want to lose. Some of them are tough, especially in the division, on the road,” Keller said. “We’re coming to the field with a great attitude every day. It’s just baseball. You’ve got to get through some hard patches here. I’ve got no doubt in our minds that we will.”
Kevin Gorman is a Tribune-Review staff writer. You can contact Kevin by email at kgorman@triblive.com or via Twitter .
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June 18, 2023 at 05:28AM
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Pirates lose 5th consecutive, drop to 3rd in NL Central - TribLIVE
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