Early offense powers Brewers to 4-3 victory over Cubs
2 min read
With the ink now dry on his five-year contract extension extension, Freddy Peralta took the mound to begin today’s tilt on the road against the Chicago Cubs. Fastball Freddy is competing with Eric Lauer for the fifth spot in the starting rotation and continues to impress so far with a strong start to the spring after a terrific winter ball season. Peralta fired three scoreless, hitless innings, walking one batter while striking out three. He has yet to allow a run this spring.
The Brewers got off to a quick start against opposing starter Yu Darvish, with Orlando Arcia leading things off with a solo home run. Milwaukee added three more runs in the third inning against Adbert Alzolay. After retiring the first two batters of the inning, Alzolay issued a walk to Keston Hiura then allowed a single to Avisail Garcia. That brought non-roster invitee Logan Morrison to the plate, and he deposited the ball over the left field fence for a three-run dinger.
Those four runs (on five hits) would be all the runs that the offense could muster, but it wound up being enough to get the ‘W’ for the day. Devin Williams and Justin Grimm tossed a scoreless inning apiece in relief of Peralta, but then Jake Faria ran into trouble in the 6th. Robel Garcia led off with a “triple” that was the result of a missed dive attempt by Luis Castro. Ian Happ scored him with a single to center. Nico Hoerner followed with a single of his own to put runners on 1st and 2nd, then Kyle Schwarber lined a double to center field to score both. Faria was able to retire the next two batters for the first two outs of the inning, but after a walk to David Bote, he was relieved by Thomas Jankins. The right-hander got Hernan Perez to ground out to short and end the inning.
That would be the last semblance of a threat put up by the Cubs in this game. Drew Rasmussen, Trey Supak, and Phil Bickford each threw hitless innings to close out the ballgame and seal up a 4-3 victory for the Brewers. The Cactus Crew will return home tomorrow to face the Reds at 2:05 PM CT, with Eric Lauer set to face off against Wade Miley, making his spring debut.
