DETROIT -- With three of their best hitters on the injured list, the Brewers are surviving the best way they know how.
When an opponent gives an inch, take a mile.
That was the story of Tuesday’s 12-4 win over the Tigers at Comerica Park, where a lackadaisical play here and an error there helped the Brewers claim the series opener despite Milwaukee’s starter, Kyle Harrison, recording nine outs, and Milwaukee’s lineup, still missing the injured Jackson Chourio, Andrew Vaughn and Christian Yelich, didn’t collect an extra-base hit until Gary Sánchez and Garrett Mitchell hit back-to-back triples leading off a game-breaking, seven-run eighth inning.
Those jolts aside, the Brewers took command as they have so often while winning the last three NL Central titles -- by capitalizing every time the Tigers made a mistake.
When rookie shortstop Kevin McGonigle was slow to convert Mitchell’s routine ground ball leading off the second inning, the Brewers turned it into a three-run rally.
And when Tigers reliever Enmanuel De Jesus had David Hamilton picked off second base in the seventh, only to throw the baseball into center field for an error, the Brewers tacked on two unearned runs on the way to their fifth victory in the past six games on the heels of a six-game losing streak.
The Brewers’ big eighth started with Sánchez’s fourth triple in 3,373 career plate appearances, and Mitchell making it Milwaukee's first back-to-back triples since Hector Gomez and Gerardo Parra off Clayton Kershaw on May 4, 2015, in Craig Counsell’s debut as Brewers manager. Even now, it was a case of Milwaukee making an opponent pay. It was the smallest thing -- De Jesus being slow to cover first base on a bouncer to first base that became the third of Hamilton’s four hits.
The Brewers, with two runs already on the board in the inning, went on to score five more.
Brice Turang led the Brewers with four RBIs while extending his on-base streak to 20 consecutive games. It’s the third-longest on-base streak to begin a season in franchise history, trailing only Robin Yount’s 23 in a row to begin the 1983 season and Ryan Braun’s 28 to open 2011.