Field Level Media
Jul 4, 2018
Brad Miller and Nate Orf hit solo home runs in the seventh inning to power the Milwaukee Brewers to their third straight win, 3-2, over the slumping Minnesota Twins on Wednesday afternoon at Miller Park in Milwaukee.
Travis Shaw also homered and had two hits for the Brewers. Jeremy Jeffress (6-1), who gave up one hit in 1 2/3 scoreless innings, picked up the win in relief of Chase Anderson. The Milwaukee starter allowed just three hits and one run in 6 1/3 innings, walking one while striking out five.
Corey Knebel, with the aid of a highlight-reel, home-run-robbing grab by center fielder Keon Broxton on Brian Dozier, notched his 10th save despite yielding a solo homer to Eduardo Escobar in the ninth.
Jorge Polanco and Escobar each had two hits and Joe Mauer and Dozier each had doubles for Minnesota, which managed just six hits and lost its sixth straight game. The defeat was the eighth in nine games for the Twins.
Mauer's double was the 414th of his career, tying Kirby Puckett for first place on the team's all-time list.
Jose Berrios (8-7) allowed five hits and three runs, all solo homers, in seven innings to pick up the loss for Minnesota. He walked two and struck out three.
Milwaukee took a 1-0 lead in the second inning on Shaw's 15th home run of the season, a 407-foot shot off the facing of the second deck in right-center. It was Shaw's first long ball since June 5. It marked the 10th straight game the Brewers homered, the team's longest streak of the season.
The Twins, who got a runner to third in both the fourth and fifth innings but failed to score, finally broke a 20-inning scoreless drought in the seventh to tie it, 1-1. Dozier led off with a double to left and advanced to third on a groundout by Escobar. Jeffress then replaced Anderson and was welcomed by an RBI single from Polanco, his first RBI of the season after serving an 80-game suspension for a failed drug test.
The Brewers regained the lead when Miller led off the bottom of the seventh with his seventh homer of the season, a 417-footer that hit almost in the same place as Shaw's off the facing of the second deck in right-center. Orf, promoted from Triple-A Colorado Springs on Monday, followed one batter later with his first major league hit, a drive down the left field line just inside the foul pole for his first home run.
Escobar made things interesting at the end with his 13th homer of the season with two outs in the ninth to cut it to 3-2. Polanco followed with a single to left, but Knebel then got Max Kepler to fly out to end the game.
--Field Level Media