'It wasn't Joe Ross': A bunch of bad luck in the fifth led to the Brewers' loss to the Padres

The way Pat Murphy sees it, the Milwaukee Brewers' 7-3 loss to the San Diego Padres wasn't all on Joe Ross.

In fact, not much of it was at all – at least according to the manager.

Holding a 3-1 lead entering the fifth Monday night at American Family Field, the right-hander suffered through a nightmarish inning that included just about every bit of annoying bad luck a pitcher could experience.

In all there were six singles – several of which were of the seeing-eye variety and not well-struck – a run-scoring passed ball, a catcher's interference on a strike and a walk on a pitch timer violation.

Eventually, the Padres batted around and then some, and Ross was replaced by Thyago Vieira with the game turning from a 3-1 Brewers lead into a 7-3 San Diego advantage that held up the rest of the way.

"He threw the ball really well," said Murphy, whose team has lost consecutive games for the first time on the young season in dropping to 10-5. "It wasn't Joe Ross. He didn't do anything wrong. The pitch-clock violation might be the one thing. But I mean, it's not Joe Ross.

"Infield hit, strikeout, walk, jam-shot hit, blooper. Catcher's interference in there after the strike – that is the rule. It's not a great rule, and we're going to change it at some point, I'm sure. That's just the way the game goes.

"Then a couple other things – balls not caught, lost in the lights or whatever. It just was like, a snakebit inning and we still had a chance to win."

Ross, who was coming off his first win since June 2021 last week in Cincinnati, ended up scattering nine hits in 4 ⅔ innings and was charged with six of those seven runs. He also walked a pair and struck out four over 80 pitches.

"I feel like I threw the ball well and for the most part I was executing pitches," Ross (1-1) said. "It was just a lot of soft contact in the right spot. There was one pitch I would like to throw again – the last pitch; I could have executed a better fastball (Luis Campusano singled in a run).

"But otherwise I felt good about how I was throwing the ball. I was just joking, saying I hope I have an outing where I get a bunch of lasers and get a lot of outs. I'm sure it'll all come back around at some point."

What's even more impressive about San Diego's comeback is the fact the team didn't even land in Milwaukee until the sun was already coming up. The Padres had just beaten the Los Angeles Dodgers at Dodger Stadium the night before.

"I give the Padres credit for taking that long trip, getting here at 6 in the morning and coming out with their A group," said Murphy, who was the team's interim manager for much of 2015. "We had a chance to put them away early."

Indeed, the Brewers jumped all over Joe Musgrove in the early going, scoring a run on three hits and a walk in the first inning and then a couple more in the second on a two-run homer by Jackson Chourio.

But from there Musgrove buckled down and the bad luck picked up for Ross.

"Everything changed after that long inning," catcher William Contreras said of the shift in fortunes. "It kind of took us out of our game. (Musgrove) didn't necessarily have a great game. Didn't have a bad one. But just kind of kept on his course there, and knocked us off ours."

Jackson vs. Jackson, Part II

The much-hyped Jackson Chourio vs. Jackson Holliday matchup in Baltimore was a storyline this past weekend in Baltimore.

Now there's another matchup of 20-year-old phenoms named Jackson taking place at American Family Field in this series.

Namely, the Brewers' Chourio vs. the Padres' Jackson Merrill, who is the oldest of the three (he turns 21 on Friday) and was the first to make his major-league debut (March 20 in the Seoul Series).

Chourio notched a leadoff single for the Brewers, stole second and scored in the first inning, then homered in his next at-bat in the second. He enters Tuesday with a .259 average, three homers, 11 RBI and an OPS of .749 in 13 games.

Merrill, meanwhile, singled three times in five at-bats and drove in two runs. He's hitting a cool .356 with a homer, seven RBI and an OPS of .874 in 19 games.

"It's tremendous talent," commented Contreras, who debuted himself in 2020 as a 22-year-old with the Atlanta Braves. "It's impressive know there's 20-year-olds going up against 30-year-olds.

"It's crazy."

Chourio became the youngest player since Bryce Harper (19 years, 346 days) to steal a base and homer in the same game while Merrill recorded his second straight three-hit game and has hit safely in 10 of his last 13.

Jared Koenig becomes Mr. 1,000

Kevin Herget was in position to become the answer to a trivia question last week in Cincinnati but never received the opportunity.

So on Monday, it ended up being left-hander Jared Koenig who became the 1,000th player to appear in at least one game for the Brewers since the franchise moved from Seattle to Milwaukee in 1970.

He pitched the final two innings, allowing three hits but no runs while also striking out a batter over 31 pitches.

Koenig signed a minor-league deal with the Brewers in November, received an invitation to major-league camp this spring and was pitching well at Class AAA Nashville (1.93 ERA in four games) when he had his contract selected in a flurry of roster moves Sunday.

The 30-year-old had 10 games of major-league experience with the Oakland A's in 2022 prior to coming to Milwaukee and flashed some pretty good stuff with a sinker that topped out at 96.8 mph.

This article originally appeared on Milwaukee Journal Sentinel: Brewers pitcher Joe Ross hit by bad luck in fifth in loss to Padres