ATLANTA -- The Brewers made it easier on lefty starter Robert Gasser on Sunday by scoring eight runs during a second inning bookended by William Contreras’ rally-sparking single and three-run home run.
But nothing about Gasser's long road back to the win column has been easy.
“It’s great to have the win next to your name,” Gasser said after the Brewers’ 9-4 win over the Braves at Truist Park. “Just to help the team get a win at the back end of the series is huge.”
The Brewers needed the win to avoid getting swept in a matchup of first-place teams with big ambitions after losing the first two games of the series despite having top starters Jacob Misiorowski and Kyle Harrison on the mound. That left the finale to Gasser, who matched career highs with six innings and seven strikeouts while limiting the Braves to two earned runs in the sort of outing the Brewers envisioned when they acquired him in the Josh Hader trade in 2022.
Gasser arrived in Milwaukee with great fanfare two years later only to go down with an elbow injury that required Tommy John surgery in 2024. Before Sunday, he had not been credited with a Major League win since winning each of his first two Brewers starts.
But to get there, he had to answer the Brewers’ challenge. Both Contreras and manager Pat Murphy said they had sharp words for Gasser after he needed 26 pitches in the first inning and 22 more in the second.
“After the second, I just told him to stop thinking as much,” said Contreras. “Sometimes in this game, you drive yourself crazy thinking a lot. I told him to enjoy the game, to go out there and have fun doing it. He did a fantastic job after that making an adjustment.”
Murphy’s message was sharper, from the sound of it.
“We challenged him, and he took it well,” Murphy said. “It was about belief, you know? Start to believe. I don’t know if it helped him. I have no idea if he even heard me. But he pitched better. It was big for us today.”
Yes, Gasser heard the message.
“It’s more so showing up ready to go,” he said. “Don’t let the game flow dictate how I’m going to play. From pitch one, be on the attack. Be pitching to win the game.”
He threw 18 pitches in the third inning, 15 in the fourth, nine in the fifth and seven in a 1-2-3 sixth to complete a 91-pitch outing. Chad Patrick covered the final three innings and earned the save, sparing the rest of the Brewers bullpen from work ahead of Brandon Woodruff’s return from the injured list to start the opener of a three-game series in Cincinnati on Monday night.
For the Brewers, it was a needed win after back-to-back heartbreakers against the Braves, who beat Misiorowski on Friday with a clutch, two-out hit and a series of defensive victories in the late innings, then robbed Harrison of a win on Saturday when Ozzie Albies hit a pop fly down the line for a walk-off home run.
“The last two games were very close,” Murphy said. “We played well and the Braves did a little bit more. They made a few unbelievable defensive plays and had timely hitting.”
Sunday was a different story. The Brewers limped into this series finale on their first three-game losing streak in nearly two months, during which they were limited to five hits in 31 at-bats (.161 average) with runners in scoring position. They matched that number in the second inning alone, going 5-for-7 with runners in scoring position against Braves starter Bryce Elder, with run-scoring hits from Sal Frelick, David Hamilton (RBI double), Jackson Chourio and Brice Turang (RBI singles) and Contreras, who drilled his seventh home run of the season into the visitors bullpen down the left-field line.
The eight runs in that inning matched the Brewers’ biggest rally all season. They also scored eight times in the sixth inning against the D-backs on April 28.
Chourio and Contreras swung their usual bats, but the rest of those clutch hits came with blue-varnished bats for Father’s Day, as the Brewers, Braves and Major League Baseball honored dads everywhere.
Gasser texted his own dad, Jim, a former pitcher himself who was drafted twice, including by the Brewers in the 27th round in 1984. Jim Gasser declined to sign, then was drafted again in 1986 by the Giants. He never pitched professionally because of an elbow injury during a time Tommy John surgery was still in its infancy.
When Robert found the same fate two years ago, father and son had to find the right blend of support.
“There came a point where he just let me go and take care of it,” Robert Gasser said. “He was my coach growing up, so he was super involved. It’s great to have that, but he knows I’m an adult and I’ve got people around me who can help. He just supports me.”
Robert texted his dad Happy Father’s Day on Sunday morning, and when he returned to his locker after the game, he found a text from dad breaking down his outing.
He couldn’t wait to call to talk about it.
“I’m pretty sure I just gave him the best Father’s Day gift possible,” Robert said.