For the second straight night, the Milwaukee Brewers blew a late 2-0 lead and lost a game they appeared to have in hand. Last night, the Brewers fell to the Pittsburgh Pirates 4-2 to fall 4 1/2 games behind Pittsburgh in the wild-card race with eight games left to play.
When teams are looking to play their best baseball, down the stretch, the Brewers have dropped 17 of 23.
Yovani Gallardo worked seven shutout innings for the Brewers, striking out eleven a season high 11. But Ron Roenicke went to the bullpen in the 8th and that’s when the roof caved in.
Pittsburgh’s Starling Marte beat the covering Jonathan Broxton to the bag at first for a close play and an infield hit. After Andrew McCutchen struck out, Neil Walker lined a single to left. Russell Martin then sent a Broxton fast ball into the seats in right center and just like that, the Pirates were up 3-2.
The Pirates added another run on an RBI single by Ike Davis off of Jeremy Jeffress to complete the scoring.
The Brewers scored their runs in separate innings. Jonathan Lucroy’s rbi single in the first. Rickie Weeks then hit a solo home run to lead off the fifth.
The Brewers will need to sweep the rest of the series and then get plenty of help next week to have any chance in the Wild Card race.
The prospects don’t look good.