For the second time in three games, the Milwaukee Brewers' offense was silenced by a Chicago Cubs starter and Milwaukee's starter couldn't get out of the fourth inning for the second straight day as the Brewers fell to the Cubs, 9-1, Sunday afternoon at Wrigley Field.
Tyler Chatwood (1-0) held Milwaukee to a run on three hits and a pair of walks while striking out eight over six innings of work, a sharp contrast to the line for Brewers starter Freddy Peralta (0-1) who was charged with four runs on three hits and two walks while striking out three batters over three-plus innings.
Peralta held the Cubs to a run through the first three innings, but quickly found himself in trouble in the fourth.
Kyle Schwarber drew a leadoff walk, then scored on Willson Contreras' double to right. Another walk to Jason Heyward brought Peralta's day to an end but Corey Knebel didn't fare much better, giving up back-to-back RBI singles to Nico Hoerner and Victor Caratini to make it a 4-0 game.
"I thought (Peralta) was at a point where fatigue might have set in a little bit," Brewers manager Craig Counsell said. "His velocity went down a little bit so I thought I'd put a fresh guy in there to get him out of the jam."
Ian Happ kept the inning going with another run-scoring single before Knebel finally recorded the first out of the inning on a Kris Bryant strikeout.
"Corey made some good pitches," Counsell said. "Especially to Hoerner, a fastball at the top of the zone, but he did a good job of putting the bat on the ball and hit a ground ball up the middle."
Left-hander Eric Lauer took over and sandwiched a pair of strikeouts around a walk to Javier Baez to finally end the inning.
Reinstated earlier in the day from the COVID-19 injured list, Lauer went on to give the Brewers 2 2/3 scoreless innings with six strikeouts.
"I feel like I was throwing the ball well," Lauer said. "My mechanics and everything felt good. I had been working on that a little bit during the offseason then throughout spring and summer camp. I was really happy with my pitch shapes and the way the ball was coming out.
"Wish we would have had a different result with the game but that’s how it goes sometimes."
The Brewers' offense finally broke through against Chatwood in the fifth on a two-out single by Ben Gamel. Orlando Arcia put Milwaukee on the board with a base hit but the potential rally was snuffed out when Eric Sogard lined out to shortstop.
"He threw a lot of strikes today," Counsell said of Chatwood. "That's been a little bit of his issue the past couple of years but he has very good stuff and he executed them very well today. He pitched well. He didn't give us the free passes you need to put him on the ropes and get his pitch count up."
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Milwaukee put only four base runners on the rest of the way while Chicago padded its lead with Contreras' solo home run in the seventh off Bobby Wahl.
The Cubs broke the game open in the eighth with home runs by Happ and Anthony Rizzo off Justin Grimm.
Photos: Brewers' offensive woes continue as Cubs cruise to victory
Photos: Brewers' offensive woes continue as Cubs cruise to victory
This article originally ran on madison.com.
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