MILWAUKEE – Jake Bauers scratched, clawed and crawled for the Brewers’ first run on Tuesday night. He smashed his shoulder in the process and dirtied his uniform. It was quintessential Brewers baseball.
And it was absolutely nothing like the rest of the night.
The Brewers matched their franchise record for runs scored in a 22-0 rout of the Mariners at American Family Field, scoring 21 of those runs over their final four, wild innings at-bat for a victory that pushed Milwaukee 30 games over .500 overall and 20 games over .500 at home.
It tied for the most lopsided shutout win in Major League Baseball since 1888, when the Philadelphia Quakers won a 24-0 game on the road. Two teams had won 22-0 games in the years since – Pittsburgh in 1975 and Cleveland in 2004.
It was their highest output since a 22-2 win over the Blue Jays in August 1992, when Hall of Famers Robin Yount and Paul Molitor were still teammates, and the Brewers played in the American League.
The Brewers’ 117 home runs may be the fewest in baseball this season, but they showed they have it in them by smacking four homers from the fifth inning on. Christian Yelich punctuated Milwaukee’s five-run fifth inning rally with a three-run home run, David Hamilton and Bauers both added multi-run homers in a five-run sixth and, in case there was any doubt, rookie outfielder Luis Lara added a two-run shot for his first Major League home run in the eighth.
Lara’s homer came in a nine-run eighth inning against a position player, Mariners infielder Leo Rivas.
But it still counts.
That eighth inning is when the game really got out of hand. When Yelich lifted a bases-loaded sacrifice fly to make it a 20-0 game, Mariners center fielder Julio Rodríguez turned and threw the baseball into the stands.
Trouble was, it was only the second out. The two other runners on base were awarded home on the error, amounting to a three-run sac fly.