SAN FRANCISCO – Ballplayers played video games or went for a walk. A few of the coaches played pickleball. Even manager Pat Murphy managed to stay away from Oracle Park until the afternoon.
A “show and go” turned into a power show for the Brewers on Tuesday, when Christian Yelich & Co. skipped batting practice and saved all their swings for an 11-3 win over the Giants in which Yelich belted his fifth career grand slam during an 11-batter, eight-run sixth inning, and eight different players scored at least one run.
They included Brice Turang, who reached safely five times while matching his career high with four hits -- all by the seventh inning. Jake Bauers tallied two hits and two runs scored in the sixth inning alone, including a two-run homer that came three batters after Yelich had also taken Giants reliever Lou Trivino deep in what became the Brewers’ biggest inning this season.
It all backed veteran left-hander Jose Quintana, who held the Giants to one run in six innings, lowering his ERA to 0.96 and becoming the first pitcher to win his first three Brewers starts since CC Sabathia won four in a row to begin his magical Milwaukee run in 2008.
“Probably the next time I want to do the same thing. Let’s show and go,” Quintana said. “It was amazing.”
It was just the sort of collective exhale that Murphy, his group of veteran “pillars” and the medical staffers who comprise the Brewers’ high performance group envisioned when they decided to turn Tuesday into baseball’s version of a half-day. This regular season is only 24 games old, but the Brewers have already experienced a long opening series at Yankee Stadium, taken two trips to the West Coast and now find themselves in the middle of a stretch of 19 games in 20 days at the same time they’re on the first leg of a three-city road trip.
“This is the longest April I’ve ever seen,” Murphy said.
On a typical day, the clubhouse would have come alive around 10:30 a.m. for a 6:45 local time first pitch. Tuesday was different, with even two of the earliest arrivals, Murphy and equipment manager Jason Shawger, waiting until 1 p.m. to leave the team hotel. Coaches were instructed to enjoy the day, so some of them partook in their favorite group activity and found a pickleball venue.
Those few extra hours can be very precious during a baseball season. They also can throw off routines, which is sometimes part of the point.
“You have your routines, you want to get in there to do this or this,” Murphy said. “We’re basically telling them, ‘No, stay away.’”
“I’ve seen guys take no swings at all during the day, and their first swing in the game is a homer,” Brewers hitting coach Connor Dawson said. “That’s just how it is sometimes.”
Bauers and Sal Frelick were among the players who spent some of the extra time gaming. Turang took a midday nap. Yelich’s body clock had him up early, so he enjoyed a cup of coffee and a nice lunch and still had time for a series of meetings before heading to work.
“We’ve been hopping back and forth [between coasts] this year, so they thought it was a good idea to let guys relax a little bit,” Yelich said. “We got here like we would for a day game, so it wasn’t like we just rolled up 45 minutes before the game and ran out there. We still had four-ish hours to get ready, you know?”
Smiling he added, “It’s nice, though. It’s nice to do that, because maybe we’ll get a couple more.”
It was a 3-1 game in the sixth inning when the Brewers broke things open against Giants starter Jordan Hicks and Trivino, with the game-breaking blow coming from Yelich. His slam left the bat at 106.6 mph with a 28-degree launch angle, according to Statcast. Translated to layman’s terms: He smoked it.
But in a night game in April in this ballpark, he had to watch the flight of the baseball.
“Here, you never really know,” he said.
Quintana used those elements to perfection to continue a sensational start to his tenure with a Brewers team he long tormented as an opponent. According to Brewers stat man Dom Cotroneo, only one pitcher in Brewers history logged a better ERA through his first three starts with the team: Right-hander Tom Filer, who had a 0.73 ERA (24 2/3 innings, two earned runs) in 1988.
“I think we’ve said this every time: It’s good to have him on our side,” Yelich said of Quintana. “We’ve seen that a bunch.”