Brandon Woodruff watched the Brewers grind out a 7-4 win over the Arizona Diamondbacks in 11 innings on July 3. The finish came after a messy top of the 11th, when Jackson Chourio’s two-foot jam shot and Ryan Thompson’s wild throw home opened the door.
Pat Murphy did not dress it up afterward. “I’m not sure we did that tonight,” he said, and then added, “I’m not sure which team lost it and which team won it.”
Chourio Starts the 11th
Chourio’s jam shot was the first turn in the final inning. The play forced Thompson into a wild throw home, and Brice Turang followed with a two-run single that pushed the Brewers to 7-3.
That sequence ended a game that had gone more than 3½ hours and had already turned into a bullpen test. Murphy said the Brewers had 13 straight hitless at-bats with runners in scoring position before the 11th, then broke through when the game was hanging on a single errant throw.
The rally mattered because Milwaukee had spent the rest of the night chasing the game with little margin. The Brewers were 3 for 15 with runners on base when they put the first two on in the eighth inning against Brandyn Garcia, and they were 3 for 18 with runners on base by the end of that inning.
Chad Patrick and Grant Anderson
Kyle Harrison did not make it out of the third inning, which forced Chad Patrick into the game early and sent Aaron Ashby, Abner Uribe and Trevor Megill behind him. Murphy called the starter’s outing “pathetic.”
That left the Brewers needing 25 outs from the bullpen, and Grant Anderson handled the end of it. He worked the 10th inning in five pitches, then got through the 11th around an Ildemaro Vargas RBI single.
Murphy said the relief group held the game together. “Megill, Uribe, Ashby, on top of Patrick. 8⅓ innings of relief, it was pretty impeccable,” he said. Anderson’s final six outs kept the 7-4 score intact after Milwaukee had spent most of the night stuck in traffic on the bases.
Chase Field in Phoenix
The Brewers left Chase Field in Phoenix with a win that looked nothing like a clean finish. Murphy also said, “did everything we could to screw it up,” and, “You can’t make that [expletive] up,” a fitting summary for a game decided by one wild throw, one late rally and one bullpen that kept working after the starter was gone.
Brandon Woodruff’s next Brewers link sits with the rotation picture in front of him, and Milwaukee’s arms just handled a game that asked for far more than nine innings. The order still matters: early exits force more relief work, and the Brewers answered this one with 8⅓ innings from the bullpen and a win on the board.
