MILWAUKEE -- His final line certainly won't show it, but Wednesday afternoon was Yovani Gallardo's best outing of the season.
For six innings, Gallardo kept Oakland at bay by commanding three pitches, getting ahead of hitters and working efficiently.
He finally looked like the Gallardo the Brewers need and are used to seeing - until the seventh inning. A leadoff walk followed by a series of unfortunate events and good hitting by the Athletics resulted in a five-run seventh inning, the final margin in Oakland's 6-1 victory.
"The first six innings were real good," Brewers manager Ron Roenicke said. "I think that was his best game. It's a shame when he throws the ball that good and he comes out with five earned runs. That's tough."
In a season filled with laborious innings and pitch counts nearing 100 by the fifth inning for Gallardo, the right-hander set a good pace from the start Wednesday. He needed just 50 pitches to face the minimum through four innings.
Oakland got a run off Gallardo in the fifth inning to tie the score at 1-all. Jed Lowrie led off with a single and Josh Donaldson followed with a seeing-eye single that just found a hole. Gallardo got Seth Smith to hit into a double play, but Lowrie scored from third to tie the game.
Gallardo bounced back and worked a perfect sixth inning, but walked John Jaso on four pitches that didn't miss by much to start the seventh inning. Yoenis Cespedes topped a curveball along the third base line for an infield single. Lowrie followed with a single to load the bases.
Donaldson then roped a single the other way, staying on an outside pitch and driving it to right field to score two runs.
"I threw it where I wanted to throw it," Gallardo said. "He did a good job. He stayed with it and hit it for a base hit."
In a blink of an eye, Gallardo's day was done. While the Donaldson hit chased him from the game, Gallardo kept going back to the walk that started the whole inning.
"That hitter, I just wasn't as aggressive as I was throughout the whole game," Gallardo said. "In the seventh inning that's something dumb, I guess. I got away from what I was doing. Next thing you know I ended up walking him and got into trouble."
Roenicke turned to left-hander Michael Gonzalez, as Oakland had three straight left-handed hitters coming up. After Gonzalez got pinch-hitter Chris Young to fly out to the warning track, Brandon Moss jumped on a first-pitch slider and hit a long, three-run home run to bust the game open.
"I don't think it was too bad of a pitch," Gonzalez said. "I think he ambushed. He was looking breaking pitch and he guessed right."
Just like like that, Oakland led 6-1 and Gallardo's final line read as if he had another frustrating outing. The only thing frustrating about Wednesday for Gallardo was the fact he had nothing to show for what he called his best outing of the year.
"It's tough to say, but it definitely was (my best outing)," Gallardo said. "The last start in Philly it felt good, but today everything was working well. I was able to keep the ball down and get out of some jams whenever I needed to."
From behind the plate, his catcher agreed and said Gallardo's tough luck is just the way things are going for the Brewers this season.
"I thought he looked very, very strong and very dominant," Brewers catcher Jonathan Lucroy said. "He walked a guy, they had some cheap hits and that turned into a big inning for them. It is what it is, but I thought he looked very good."
Unlike most of this year's losses, the Brewers actually had the early lead Wednesday. Carlos Gomez tripled in the first inning to score Jean Segura, but Milwaukee failed to score Gomez from third base with one out.
That was just one of many scoring opportunities the Brewers let slip away, as they had just one run on nine hits, leaving nine men on base.
"I think what was frustrating was we had a lot of opportunities to score and good opportunities," Roenicke said. "All we had to do is put the ball in the middle of the field or put it in the outfield somewhere in the air. We didn't do a good job of hitting with people in scoring position. They get one big opportunity and they get two really big at-bats. That was the difference in the game."
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