MILWAUKEE -- They made a last-ditch effort to rewrite the story, but in the end the Brewers did what no other team has done this season.
They got swept by the Oakland A’s.
Freddy Peralta surrendered back-to-back home runs in Oakland’s go-ahead, four-run fourth inning, and the A’s tacked on four backbreaking insurance runs late as the Brewers fell one swing short at the end of an 8-6 loss at American Family Field on Sunday.
The A’s were 12-50 last Monday, but now they’re 17-50 and riding a five-game winning streak for the first time since 2021. Oakland hadn’t won more than two games in a row all season before arriving in Milwaukee.
“My overall feeling is you’ve got to give them credit,” said Brewers bench coach Pat Murphy, who managed the team on Sunday while skipper Craig Counsell attended his son’s Whitefish Bay High School graduation ceremony. “It’s Major League Baseball, and from what I know about it, everybody is kind of an inch from the top and an inch from the bottom. [The A’s have] been getting their teeth kicked in all year in an embarrassing way when you look at overall record, but these are Major League players. …
“You credit them. It doesn’t ignore the fact that we’re hobbling in so many ways. But don’t forget, that’s a Major League team over there.”
The Brewers fell despite putting the leadoff man on base in four straight innings from the third through the sixth and putting a runner on base with fewer than two outs in every inning from the second through the eighth, when Rowdy Tellez’s deep drive to center field fell just short. A few more feet would have given Milwaukee the lead.
“I came out of the dugout. I thought it was a homer,” shortstop Willy Adames said.
Instead, the rally died and the A’s extended the lead to 8-3 with three crucial insurance runs in the ninth charged to Peter Strzelecki that wound up deciding the game. Murphy had a full bullpen, and with off-days on Monday and Thursday this week, he used it rather liberally behind Peralta. Murphy said Strzelecki needed the work and “needs to get his confidence back, get on track.”
Many in the crowd of 31,363 began filing out, but the Brewers -- down to their final out in the bottom of the ninth against A’s reliever Trevor May -- weren’t done. They cobbled together a rally that brought Abraham Toro to the plate representing the tying run. After Toro singled home two runs, Blake Perkins came to the plate as the winning run.
“I feel like it would probably be a season-changing moment,” Adames said. “You’re not expecting that in the ninth inning down by [five].”
But Perkins bounced out, and the Brewers took a fourth straight loss to fall a game behind the National League Central-leading Pirates. It’s the first time Milwaukee has been a full game out of first place since May 6.
Just as troubling is this: Brewers hitters haven’t managed to come all the way back from a multirun deficit at any point since they scored seven runs in the third inning on May 14 against the Royals to turn a 4-1 deficit into an 8-4 lead in what became a 9-6 win.
“People just see the records, but they don’t watch the games,” Adames said. “[The A’s] pitchers, they were executing every pitch in this series. If you go and watch the at-bats against their starting pitcher, he was painting every pitch. He was going corner to corner, up, changeup, slider.
“They pitched really good. They’re big leaguers. They’re here for a reason. They executed this series, and we didn’t.”
A’s starter JP Sears surrendered Christian Yelich’s first home run in 100 plate appearances and Owen Miller’s RBI double as the Brewers built a 2-0 lead through three innings. But Oakland struck right back against Peralta in the fourth, with the big blow coming on Seth Brown’s go-ahead, three-run homer at the end of an 11-pitch at-bat.
Brent Rooker made it back-to-back homers, and the A’s never trailed again.
“I should have made better work today on the mound,” Peralta said. “The boys tried to come back. The offense did a great job today. But as a pitcher, I need to do a better job to give them a chance to win the game.”
Said Adames: “It’s not going our way. One of those moments right now. I feel like the whole team is feeling it.”