CINCINNATI -- Jhoulys Chacín turned in his best pitching performance since his last win way back in April, but it wasn’t good enough to snap his personal losing streak.
The Milwaukee right-hander allowed four hits and one run with no walks in six innings before wilting in the seventh with three straight hits to start the frame, but the Brewers -- with Christian Yelich and his 31 home runs getting the night off -- were even more ineffective against Cincinnati’s Sonny Gray. The right-handed Gray used a wicked curveball to tie his single-game career high with 12 strikeouts while allowing just four hits and one runner past second base in eight innings of a 3-0 Milwaukee loss.
“He got it going early in the game, the curveball and the slider,” Milwaukee manager Craig Counsell said. “He was really good tonight. He wasn’t just throwing strikes. He was throwing strikes in great places. He was only sprinkling in his fastball.
“I thought he was really good, no doubt about it. He struggled against right-handed hitters the other two times we’ve seen him, but tonight he was great with the breaking ball.”
Gray (5-5) thought Chacin’s effort helped him bear down on the way to sending the Brewers to their fourth shutout loss of the season.
“He threw the ball great,” Gray said. “It was a tight game, and he did a great job. We did just enough.”
Chacin (3-9), the Brewers’ Opening Day starter, set a single-game season high with eight strikeouts -- fanning Cincinnati home run-leader Eugenio Suarez three times -- after reaching seven twice previously. The Reds led off the seventh with three consecutive singles for a 2-0 lead that prompted Counsell to bring in right-hander Jeremy Jeffress.
Chacin improved on his last start, when he allowed six hits and one run with two walks and four strikeouts in five innings of a 3-2 loss to Pittsburgh on Friday. The only run he allowed in his first six innings on Wednesday resulted from Yasiel Puig’s second-inning leadoff home run, his 19th of the season and second of the four-game series.
“I feel fine,” Chacin said. “I feel like I was making some good pitches. My slider was good, and my fastball was good, too, but in the end, we lost the game. It’s frustrating. [Counsell] left me in for the seventh and I gave up three straight hits. Hopefully, my second half will be better and I’ll pitch deeper into games with more consistency. I feel like, the last couple of starts, I’ve been keeping the ball down. I’m happy I’m not walking as many people.”
Puig’s 19th homer of the season was all the Central Division cellar-dwelling Reds, who snapped a six-game home losing streak against Milwaukee with a 5-4, 11-inning win on Tuesday, needed for their second straight win over division-leading Milwaukee. The Brewers maintained their tenuous hold on first place after Pittsburgh came from behind to beat Chicago, 6-5, on Wednesday.
Puig’s no-doubt line drive into the left-field seats came on a 1-1 90.6 MPH four-seam fastball. The homer was the 16th allowed by Chacin, breaking a tie with right-hander Corbin Burnes for the team lead in home runs allowed.
Puig also scored Cincinnati’s seventh-inning run and added a sacrifice fly in the eighth.
Chacin retired 13 straight batters through the sixth, but he is now 0-6 in nine starts since a 4-3 win over Colorado on April 30.
“From the third through the sixth, he was on as good of a roll as he’s been all year,” Counsell said. “That’s encouraging. His effort was down, and his velocity was up. That’s his last start before the break, and it was a good one for him.”
Chacin called for Milwaukee’s trainer to come out to the mound with two outs in the fifth inning after reaching for his right side following an aborted run to first base on Gray’s grounder to Eric Thames. Chacin threw one test pitch and stayed in the game, coaxing Jesse Winker into grounding out to Thames.
“He had a cramp in his side after throwing a pitch,” Counsell said. “We just had to make sure he was OK and that it wasn’t an oblique.”