Travel fatigue and a relentless double-play bug haunted the Milwaukee Brewers against the San Francisco Giants.
The Milwaukee Brewers recorded just three hits in a 3-0 loss to the San Francisco Giants that was excruciating to watch.
Brandon Sproat fell to 3-6 on the year as he issued three walks, allowing all three of the Giants runs to score in the first four innings.
Sure, he went six innings, but Milwaukee's offense had nothing to respond with. In the end, Jackson Chourio, Jake Bauers, and Andrew Vaughn were the lone players to record hits.
The Brewers left just two runners on base in a game that saw them go 0-for-2 with runners in scoring position. Somehow, they grounded into more double plays (three) than they had at-bats with a RISP.
Pat Murphy breaks down the loss
While the two-time National League Manager of the Year knows this team can't make excuses, he brought up a great point as to why the guys may have played the way they did after traveling to the west coast.
"The guys had a super long night last night sitting on the runway for five hours … [but] they wouldn't want me making excuses for them," manager Pat Murphy said, according to MLB.com. "But yeah, credit the Giants. That's No. 1. Credit the Giants. They played well, pitched very well. They played great defense."
Murphy said the Brewers had "probably" six positive at-bats in the first three innings, "then after that we probably had three the whole night."
The Giants retired nine straight Brewers to end the game. Despite Chourio reaching with a leadoff single in the seventh inning, Brice Turang, William Contreras, and Luis Lara failed to spark a late rally.
Double plays are rally killers
It's pretty inexcusable to think this team grounded into not one, not two, but three double plays. If that statistic isn't bad enough, it makes it worse knowing they did so in the first six innings. While the Brewers only had three hits on the night, Vaughn and Cooper Pratt were the only players to reach by drawing a walk.
Garrett Mitchell grounded into an inning-ending double play in the second. In a 0-0 game, Milwaukee had Bauers at second after he singled and Vaughn was at first thanks to his five-pitch walk.
Fast forward to the fifth inning, Mitchell once again retired himself and Vaughn thanks to an inning-ending double play.
One inning later, Pratt drew a leadoff walk only for Joey Ortiz to ground into a double play just two pitches later. Tyler Mahle deserves a ton of credit for what he did, but the Brewers fell to 66-40 because their offense was left in Milwaukee.
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