Right-hander Brandon Woodruff feels as if he is stuck in a pitching version of the movie “Groundhog Day,” but not with the happy ending that Phil Connors experienced.
In what has become an all-too-familiar pattern, Woodruff kept the Cleveland Indians off the board until the fifth inning Saturday night. But he bogged down and couldn’t make it through that frame in a game the Brewers lost in the ninth inning, 4-3, when Josh Hader’s 2020 no-hitter finally came to an end.
Afterward, Woodruff was quite harsh in evaluating another frustrating outing.
“Not getting through five innings is kind of a disgrace,” he said. “I hold myself to a high standard.”
BOX SCORE: Indians 4, Brewers 3
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It’s not that Woodruff is pitching poorly. But, at 2-3 with a 3.91 ERA through nine starts, he isn’t performing like the staff ace he became last season, leading to an opening day assignment in this pandemic-delayed 60-game schedule. It was the sixth time Woodruff failed to go beyond the fifth inning, and the third time he didn’t get through that inning.
“It shouldn’t happen,” Woodruff said. “I should be throwing six or seven innings every night and it’s eating me alive right now. I have to figure it out and finish strong these last three weeks and get into the playoffs. I just have to stay positive and nail it down.”
Making the quick exit tougher to swallow was that Woodruff began the fifth inning with his fourth consecutive strikeout. He then got ahead in the count of No. 9 hitter Oscar Mercado, 1-2, only to throw three consecutive balls and walk him.
“That was the defining moment of the game, the Mercado at-bat,” Woodruff said. “If I could have just thrown a strike, I could have been just fine.”
Woodruff then fell behind in the count, 2-0, to Cesar Hernandez, who laced an RBI double to left-center to tie the game, 1-1. He then couldn’t put away Jose Ramirez, who fouled off six two-strike pitches to stay alive in a 10-pitch duel that ended with Ramirez sending a two-run homer to right that left Woodruff with a look of amazement on his face.
“I went back and watched the pitch, and I didn’t get it in as good as I needed to,” said Woodruff, who was removed from the game at that point. “But in that moment, the sound off the bat, the flight of the ball was a lazy popup to right field in my eyes. Even watching (Ryan Braun) go back, I thought it was still just a fly ball to right field.
“I guess there was a little jet stream there in right and it kind of just got up in it. Honestly, it shocked me. I guess that’s a good word. I couldn’t believe with how hard it was hit that it went out. That put an exclamation mark on the outing.”
Last year, after a shaky first month, Woodruff found a new gear and started cruising through games, never getting stuck in the middle as has happened repeatedly this season. In nine starts, he has pitched only 46 innings.
“It was another long at-bat that got him – the Ramirez at-bat,” manager Craig Counsell said. “He made some good pitches to him and Ramirez is a really good hitter and hit some foul balls, then did some damage.
“This is a team that’s really patient. They got his pitch count up the first couple of innings but he put up zeroes. Ramirez just had a great at-bat. He didn’t necessarily square the ball up but he put it in the air to the right part of the park.
“The common theme the last couple of outings is the (fourth or fifth) inning has been a rough inning for him. Going through the lineup a second time, he has struggled in those innings. That’s something that’s been a little hard to figure out… He’s not pitching poorly but he’s giving them enough windows that they’re taking advantage of.”
Not that Woodruff’s outing was the reason the Brewers lost the game. With the bullpen doing another nice job of covering for a starter, the offense finally produced two big hits – home runs by Keston Hiura (his fourth in five games) in the sixth and Orlando Arcia in the eighth to tie the game.
But there should have been more. Much more. The Brewers went 3-for-12 with runners in scoring position and left 11 men on base. As so often has been the case this season, they could not put the ball in play when doing so likely would have resulted in a run scoring.
With runners on the corners and one down in the sixth, Arcia struck out against Indians starter Aaron Civale. In that same situation in the ninth, Braun went down swinging on a slider in the dirt by Cleveland closer Brad Hand.
“We had the guys up there we wanted up there numerous times and we just didn’t cash it in,” Counsell said. “We had the right guys up at the plate to do something and, again, the strikeouts hurt. Strikeouts in those situations are outs that are hurting us.”
With every win and loss huge at this point of the season, Counsell pulled out all of the stops with his bullpen. He got two innings out of Devin Williams, who struck out four more hitters to give him 35 in 17 innings, a remarkable rate.
Counsell then summoned Hader in a tie game on the road, realizing that the best hope was to make it to extra innings. The slinging lefty had set a major-league record with 12 consecutive hitless appearances to open the season, covering 11 2/3 innings and 47 batters.
Hader not only gave up one hit, he gave up two, without recording an out. Mercado jumped on a high 0-1 fastball at 93 mph and knocked it off the wall in left for a double. When Hader spiked a slider past catcher Omar Narváez for a wild pitch to send Mercado to third, Counsell went to a five-man infield to try to prevent another hit from getting through.
The ploy didn’t work as Hernandez grounded a 1-1 fastball through the left side for the game-winning hit, saddling the Brewers with one of their toughest losses of the season.
“It was a great run,” Counsell said of Hader’s no-hit streak. “It was going to end. We’re (38) games into the season and he hadn’t given up a hit. Give Mercado credit; he had a nice game. He’s hitting ninth and he was a big part of their offense tonight.”
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Frustrated Brandon Woodruff called it 'a disgrace' to have another short outing for Brewers - Milwaukee Journal Sentinel
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