Brewers starter Adrian Houser didn’t have a bad start in Friday’s 6-1 loss to the Pirates, but it was somehow the worst a Milwaukee starter has had in a while.
When Brewers manager Craig Counsell removed Houser with two on and one out in the top of the fifth, it ended a franchise-record streak of eight straight games in which starters had gone at least five innings without giving up more than one run. During that stretch, the rotation posted a 0.59 ERA while opposing batters hit just .136.
In that run, Milwaukee went 6-2 to pull into a tie for first place in the National League Central with the Reds. The two losses only came after late-inning, two-run home runs from the Cardinals on April 8 and the Cubs on Tuesday, well after the starters had already been pulled.
So while Houser’s start wasn’t as bad as it could have been, it just didn’t stack up to what the rotation had done in the previous eight games.
“I wouldn’t say I had the best overall command tonight,” Houser said. “I was trying to hit some spots and get ground balls, they put a couple good swings on them. They put it in play like they’re supposed to.”
As Houser pointed out, he did have some command issues through his 4 1/3 innings, but it wasn’t as though he got rocked all night.
The Pirates entered Friday last in MLB in hard-hit percentage (32.3 percent) and tied for 28th in average exit velocity (87.4 mph). Of Pittsburgh’s 13 batted balls against Houser, only six registered as hard-hit balls (95-mph-plus exit velocity) and just two of those went for hits. The other three of the Pirates’ five total hits off Houser left the bat at 85.5 mph or less, with two not even reaching 63 mph.
But Houser worked long counts multiple times throughout the early innings. He fell behind in counts to 12 batters, including all three he faced in the fifth, changing the way he approached each hitter and forcing him to keep his pitches over the plate more often.
“I wasn't working ahead tonight, and that's on me. That's something I need to get back on the mound and fix [in] my next bullpen,” Houser said. “It definitely changes the game. If I don't start ahead, can't work how we want to work pitches and stuff like that, so it definitely puts you in a bind when you get behind.”
Pirates first baseman Colin Moran smacked a solo shot off Houser in the second inning to put the Brewers behind 1-0 early, but a dribbler off the bat of shortstop Kevin Newman in the fifth inning was ultimately the beginning of the end of Houser’s night.
Dustin Fowler followed it with a single to center to put two men on with no outs in the inning, but Houser then struck out Pittsburgh's starting pitcher, JT Brubaker. With left-handed-hitter Adam Frazier due up at the top of the order, however, Counsell went with lefty reliever Brent Suter, who proceeded to allow a two-run triple to Frazier to push Milwaukee’s deficit to three.
“I think Adrian made a bunch of pitches to get out of some jams and keep it at one run through four innings. I thought he did a really good job of doing that,” Counsell said. “When the first two guys got on in the fifth and the top of their lineup was coming up again, we went with somebody else to try and get out of it. He made some pitches to keep it at one run. Again, it's progress to me for Adrian. He was doing his job, but we just didn't get it done on the back end tonight.”
Though he didn’t make an outright prediction, Milwaukee’s Saturday starter Brett Anderson said before Friday’s game that he knew the elite starting pitching performances likely wouldn’t last forever.
“I don’t think everybody’s going to have a sub-1 [ERA] at the end of the year,” Anderson said. “That’s just the way baseball works.”
Little did he know, the magic would end only a few hours later.