Brewers hope to put bad series behind them as NL Central race heats up
As the calendar flips to September, it's game on in the National League Central.
Following an embarrassing 15-5 defeat to the red-hot San Francisco Giants on Sunday afternoon, the Milwaukee Brewers find themselves tied for first place in the National League Central.
With 26 games to play, the Brewers and St. Louis Cardinals both sit at 73-63, while the Pittsburgh Pirates are just two games back at 71-65.
While the Brewers enter the season's final month still at the top of the division, Milwaukee is certainly not playing like a first-place team. Bad pitching and defense carried over to Sunday, while the bats didn't awaken until the Brewers were well on their way to being swept.
"It was just a bad series," Brewers manager Ron Roenicke said. "We didn't do anything well. We didn't pitch well, we didn't play defense and we didn't swing the bat well.
"It happens. You aren't going to go through a whole season and not play a bad series. This was a bad series. We've got beat before in series, but we didn't play well. We were making a couple of mistakes, and when we make a mistake they really capitalized on it."
Milwaukee will play 22 of its final 26 games against divisional opponents, including seven games with St. Louis and three with Pittsburgh.
The opportunity is still there and the season is far from over, but the Brewers must quickly start playing better baseball to prevent what now is a five-game losing streak from spiraling out of control.
"What are we, tied for first? First of September tomorrow?" Brewers starter Kyle Lohse said. "That's where it's fun. If you tell the team at the beginning of the year that's where you'll be, no matter how you got there . . . this is what it comes down to. We've got to get back on a good roll and start executing better."
After the Brewers jumped out to a 1-0 lead against Madison Bumgarner in the first inning Sunday, a misplayed fly ball by Ryan Braun turned into a leadoff triple for Pablo Sandoval in the second.
Lohse had a chance to escape the inning with no damage after getting two groundball outs, but backup catcher Andrew Susac doubled to center to tie the game.
An inning later, a single and a walk set the stage for Hunter Pence to put San Francisco up 3-1 with a two-run double off Lohse. Sandoval followed with a single to put Milwaukee's deficit at 4-1.
The Giants would take advantage of a missed fly ball by second baseman Rickie Weeks in the fifth, as Sandoval connected for his 15th home run of the season. Angel Pagan would add an RBI single in the sixth to chase Lohse from the game.
After picking up Milwaukee's only win thus far on the road trip Monday in San Diego, Lohse allowed seven runs on nine hits in 5 2/3 innings Sunday and didn't receive much help from his defense.
"Myself, pitch-wise (I have to) do a better job of keeping us in games," Lohse said. "I can't speak for everybody, but I've got a job to do, maybe 5-6 more starts and I'm looking forward to it. After a day like today you can't do anything about it now, so you just move on and look forward to the Chicago series."
The Giants outscored the Brewers 31-8 in the three-game series, as San Francisco won two of the three games by more than 10 runs. Fresh up from Triple-A, reliever Alfredo Figaro allowed three runs without recording an out Sunday, while Will Smith was touched for four runs in 2/3 of an inning.
San Francisco currently holds the top wild-card spot in the National League and has won six straight to have a better record than Milwaukee by one game.
"They played good. We did not," Brewers center fielder Carlos Gomez said. "You just move forward. Nobody told us it was going to be easy. You just respect (the Giants) -- they came after us and did damage. They won the whole series. You put it in the past and come to your own division and play well again.
"That can motivate you, too. Last week, we swept the Dodgers and they didn't expect that. We didn't expect this, too. This is how the game is. You move forward and forget about it."
Since beginning the season 20-8, the Brewers are 53-55. Because the rest of the division has gone through its share of ups and downs, Milwaukee still is in position to make a run at the postseason despite being an under .500 club for four months.
With a huge four-game series with the Cardinals at Miller Park looming next weekend, the Brewers must begin to turn things around Monday afternoon in Chicago against the Cubs.
"Going forward it is (important to avoid)," Roenicke said to playing bad baseball this time of year. "We're still OK. We can turn this thing around in a hurry and have a good next series. Then you go on from there.
"We still have a long ways to go and we know it. You are always disappointed when you have a series like this, especially after playing them tough in our ballpark. We just fell apart."
Gomez injures wrist: To add to the pain of being swept in San Francisco, the Brewers will likely be without Carlos Gomez for at least the near future.
Gomez left the game with left wrist soreness following a strikeout in the third inning Sunday. X-rays came back negative, but Roenicke doesn't expect Gomez to play Monday against the Cubs.
"He's going to come with us to Chicago, and we'll see where we are," Roenicke said. "But he needs to get checked out there or back in Milwaukee, one or the other."
After the game, Gomez was optimistic the injury is nothing serious.
"When I do my follow-through normal, I always let go with one hand," Gomez said. "And I got stuck and I felt a pop. When I felt it pop, it was a shooting pain. I had x-rays, which were negative, so it might be a nerve kind of twisted.
"Today, we don't think it's something bad. Right now, it's sore, but it's been sore the last couple days. I've been worse than that in the past. It's just on that swing, I hear the pop. I froze from the pop."
Follow Andrew Gruman on Twitter
