Gritty effort from Garza not enough for Crew
PHOENIX -- Matt Garza pitched into the eighth inning and Khris Davis homered a few miles from his high school, but the Brewers left Chase Field on Wednesday night with the sinking feeling that they had bobbled one away.
A slew of miscues helped the D-backs score a pair of runs in the first inning, which is why they were able to win in the bottom of the ninth, 4-3, on a Tony Campana single.
Campana had one hit in his last 39 Major League at-bats when he grounded the winning hit to center field against reliever Brandon Kintzler, who'd found trouble two batters earlier when Martin Prado knocked a one-out double.
The loss snapped the Brewers' four-game road winning streak and erased a gritty effort by Garza, who pitched 7 2/3 innings and surrendered only one more run after his team's sloppy first. He retired 16 of the final 18 batters he faced.
"He gave us a chance to win, but we've got to hit," catcher Jonathan Lucroy said. "That's the bottom line. It shouldn't have been that close."
Whatever could go wrong for Garza and the Brewers in the first inning did. Gerardo Parra led off with a hit into the right-field corner that eluded Ryan Braun for a triple. Chris Owings followed with an RBI infield single that caromed off first baseman Mark Reynolds. After Garza retired the dangerous Paul Goldschmidt on a fielder's choice, Miguel Montero hit what looked like a double-play grounder to second baseman Rickie Weeks, who bounced a throw to Jean Segura covering the bag for an error. Goldschmidt was safe at second base on that play, and moved to third on Garza's wild pitch. Aaron Hill followed with another potential double-play grounder, but Weeks bounced the relay throw to first base, and another run scored.
"I just kept making pitches," Garza said. "It was ground balls and … ground balls, that's it. Some fluke plays, and that's all there was. Parra got a good ball down the line, but that's all there was. Everything else was on the ground. No big deal."
As for his plan when things threatened to unravel around him, Garza said, "You just keep making pitches. That's it. Keep going. There's nothing you can do. You do all you can do and keep getting the ball, keep getting them out."
After all that, the D-backs had a two-run lead that they extended to three in the third inning, when Owings tripled and scored on a single by Goldschmidt, who went down for a Garza fastball well below the strike zone and grounded it up the middle.
Davis delivered an equalizer in the fourth inning against left-hander Wade Miley, who was excellent aside from one flurry of Brewers hits. Lucroy and Carlos Gomez led off the inning with singles, Gomez extending his hitting streak to 14 games and his streak of reaching base safely to 31 games. Two batters later, Davis went the opposite way, sending a first-pitch fastball over the right-field fence and into the D-backs' swimming pool.
"I thought it was a pretty good pitch. It was down and in," Miley said. "He's a pretty good hitter, and I've just got to recognize better and know the situation. I was trying to get a ground ball right there, maybe jam him, and he wasn't having it."
That was the only rally against Miley, who allowed three runs on five hits over 7 2/3 innings, with four walks and eight strikeouts. Five of those K's came on called third strikes from home-plate umpire Alfonso Marquez.
"[Miley] hits that spot in off the plate -- and when I say 'in off the plate,' a lot of them are in, off the plate," manager Ron Roenicke said, using his hands for emphasis. "And he comes back with a real nice changeup. He's got a nice slider that he buried, and we chased it some. But he locates well, and as long as you can get those pitches inside, you're going to be tough to hit."
Garza was just as effective, allowing three runs (two earned) on seven hits. He did not walk a batter, struck out four, and threw 103 pitches before exiting with a runner at third base and two outs in the eighth inning in favor of left-handed reliever Will Smith, who struck out Montero to end that threat.
When the D-backs scored the next inning, the Brewers were left to rue their first-inning mistakes.
"The first inning hasn't been fun for us the last two, three days. Actually, the past four days," Lucroy said. "That's one of those things we've got to get over and get through."