The Milwaukee Brewers finished their series against the San Diego Padres in emphatic fashion on Thursday with a 7-1 win.

It was a full team effort on both sides of the ball for Milwaukee. And, after the game, manager Pat Murphy reacted to his team’s strong performance by first praising third baseman Luis Rengifo for his clutch play to stop a run from scoring in the top of the first inning.

"Yeah, that defensive play was a huge play," Murphy told the media. "And then, he's been swinging the bat probably four or five games now. He's really swinging the bat well, so, really pleased."

Rengifo was one of three Brewers to have a multi-hit game. He also drove in a team-high three RBIs. The other two hitters to finish with multiple hits in Thursday's game were Andrew Vaughn and Garrett Mitchell, who Murphy also praised.

On the mound, the Brewers got five strong innings out of left-hander Kyle Harrison, who struck out seven batters in his shutout effort. Afterward, Murphy relied on three relievers to finish the job, and he lauded their effort as well.

"Harrison did a great job for us," Murphy said. "Bobbed and weaved a little bit; got us five innings. And the pen was good, [Brian] Fitzpatrick was pretty good."

While the Brewers’ offense was churning, Harrison had long stretches of waiting to return to the mound. Additionally, he avoided several situations in which Padres hitters nearly drew walks. Harrison ended up finishing his outing without allowing a walk, which Murphy also admired.

"Yeah, I mean, he had a bunch of three-ball counts, but he really came through," Murphy said. "He's coming of age, too, and you look at him and [Brandon] Sproat, what they're doing. It's really, for rookie pitchers to be, I mean, Harrison's not a rookie, but he's basically never been the full-time starter from day one till all the way through, so, really good job."

While the Brewers were able to finish the series strongly with a dominant win, injury adversity continues to linger. Back soreness has caused Christian Yelich to miss the last two games after he finally returned on Tuesday from a month-long stint on the Injured List due to a left adductor strain.

The silver lining is that, as of Thursday, Yelich was showing improvement.

"Yeah, it felt much better today," Murphy said. "We'll find out a lot more tomorrow. And a telling tale of whether he needs a longer break. And yeah, he feels awful. He just feels awful about it, because he's so responsible to this organization. 

"He cares so much about his role and those types of things," Murphy added. "And very unselfish. But yeah, no, he's pushing to get back. But we're going to make sure that he's OK because we want him for the majority of the season, not just these few games."

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