The Milwaukee Brewers’ late season slide continued on Wednesday night, falling 6-2 to the Chicago Cubs at Wrigley Field. The Cubs completed their first home sweep of the Brewers since 2004.
The Brewers started the road trip with a 10-1 victory in San Diego. Since then, they’ve lost eight straight games. They were outscored 55-16 during the losing streak. They started the road trip with a 1 1/2 game lead on the St. Louis Cardinals atop the NL Central. They come home trailing the Cardinals by three games after St. Louis blanked Pittsburgh 1-0 yesterday.
Matt Garza (7-8, 3.87), who had missed the last month with an oblique injury, returned to the Brewers rotation, but he allowed all six Cub runs on eight hits before departing.
The Brewers actually scored first, getting a run off of Chicago’s rookie right-hander Kyle Hendricks in the second inning. Khris Davis singled with one out, moved up on Matt Clark’s grounder and scored on Logan Schafer’s single to center.
But the 1-0 lead didn’t last very long as Chicago’s number-8 hitter, Chris Valaika (.188) clubbed a two run homer to left to give the Cubs the lead at 2-1, a lead they wouldn’t surrender.
The Brewers now face a crucial 4-game home series against the St. Louis Cardinals starting tonight. Wily Peralta (15-9, 3.82), who has struggled in his last two outings, will pitch for the Brewers. Michael Wacha (5-5, 2.79) gets the nod for St. Louis.