A mix of small ball and the long ball contributed to the highest-scoring inning of the season for the Milwaukee Brewers.
After Carlos Gomez got the Brewers on the board with a two-out, RBI bunt single, Ryan Braun, Adam Lind and Aramis Ramirez hit consecutive home runs off Anibal Sanchez during a six-run outburst in the third inning Tuesday.
That was plenty of offense for Jimmy Nelson, who cruised through eight innings in Milwaukee's 8-1 victory over the Detroit Tigers at Comerica Park.
"I liked that," Brewers manager Craig Counsell said of the three consecutive home runs in the third. "Yeah, that's fun to see. That was a great, classic Brauny swing. He just backspins the ball to the opposite field. Then Adam and Rami both had good swings."
Hector Gomez started the offensive outburst in the third with a one-out double. He then tagged to third on Martin Maldonado's fly out to center, which allowed Carlos Gomez to catch the Tigers off guard with an RBI bunt single to tie the game at 1-all.
Following a walk to Gerardo Parra, Braun connected for a three-run home run off the foul pole in right. It was Braun's team-leading ninth home run of the season, eight of which have come in his last 20 games.
"I was confident I hit it far enough to be a home run; I wasn't quite sure whether it would stay fair or not," Braun said. "Fortunately, it hit the pole. Good start to a great inning for us."
Five pitches after Braun put the Brewers up 4-1, Lind sent a 2-2 splitter from Sanchez into the right-field seats. Ramirez followed by hammering a hanging curveball to left center for a solo shot.
Khris Davis nearly made it four straight, but his well-struck drive died in the spacious center field of Comerica Park.
It marked the first time the Brewers hit three consecutive home runs since Braun, Ramirez and Corey Hart went back-to-back-to-back off Alex Hinshaw in the ninth inning of Milwaukee's 14-5 victory over the Chicago Cubs at Wrigley Field on Aug. 27, 2012.
"We've been swinging the bats a lot better recently as a group," Braun said. "Collectively, we have a lot of guys putting together some better at-bats. When there's multiple guys swinging the bats well, I think it helps everybody. Just like we said early in the year when we weren't going well: It was contagious.
"As of late, we've been swinging the bats better in spite of facing some really, really good pitching, so that's another time where it seems to be contagious and a lot of guys are swinging the bats well."
Nelson made the six-run third inning hold up by shutting down a potent Tigers offense over eight innings. The right-hander struggled to command his four-seam fastball and his curveball early, which led to him using his two-seam sinker quite a bit.
The sinker was certainly working, as 13 of the 24 outs he recorded came via the groundball, while the Tigers didn't hit a fly ball to the outfield after the third inning.
"By the seventh inning, we started talking about the ground balls in the dugout," Counsell said. "They just started coming in bunches. I think that's who Jimmy is going to be. It just tells you he had plus-movement on his fastball."
Detroit jumped out to a 1-0 lead on a two-out RBI single from J.D. Martinez in the bottom of the first. Nelson recovered to toss seven consecutive scoreless innings before giving way to Corey Knebel, who made his Brewers debut by working a perfect ninth.
"I would say the last four or five innings, for sure," Nelson said when asked if this was him at his best Tuesday. "I was just able to command my stuff. I was finally able to get the curveball over for a strike, the slider over for a strike and kind of expand from there.
"That's what I need to be able to do from inning number one. That's something I've battled a little bit before -- the first inning or two. It was nice to get out of that inning with just one run. I got away with some stuff. Those guys picked me up big, offensively and defensively."
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