Young Brewers got a taste of how tough the NL Central race will be in series loss to Counsell’s Cubs

CHICAGO – In their first matchup with the competition atop the National League Central, the Milwaukee Brewers just weren't crisp enough.

While they fought back to win the opener on Friday and scrapped their way to make Saturday’s loss a close one, when push came to shove the Brewers didn’t execute at a high enough level.

That was the case, more so than the previous two games, on Sunday as the Chicago Cubs cruised to a 5-0 win behind a dominant Javier Assad start and fifth-inning rally against Freddy Peralta.

Now, the division is tied just two days after the Brewers had pushed their lead to two games.

For a young Brewers team, it was a trial-by-fire introduction to the Chicago-Milwaukee rivalry that seems to always feature close, competitive games that matter in front of packed stadiums.

“100%. 100%,” said Brewers infielder Tyler Black when asked if he got the full experience this weekend. “It’s really exciting, for sure.”

Here are three takeaways of ways the Brewers didn’t execute in Sunday’s loss.

Command eludes Freddy Peralta

It was apparent from the first inning that Peralta was going to have to battle his command.

He threw 24 pitches and just 11 were strikes. He had a particularly tough time spotting his fastball and didn’t earn a called or swinging strike with it until the final pitch of the inning, a swinging strike on an elevated 97 mph heater to Michael Busch.

Peralta didn’t give up a run in the first but he never solved the riddle of location.

In all, Peralta walked six runs in five innings, becoming the first Brewers pitcher to walk at least that many in five or fewer innings since he did so back in May of 2018 against the Minnesota Twins. He walked Christopher Morel three times, which no pitcher had ever done before.

“It shouldn’t have happened. I have to be better than that,” Peralta said of his walks.

The command didn’t burn Peralta through four scoreless but ultimately burned him in the fifth.

After a one-out infield hit for Pete Crow-Armstrong, Peralta hit .197-hitting catcher Miguel Amaya in the elbow with a two-strike pitch.

Two offerings later, Nico Hoerner got a fastball just above the knees and over the middle of the plate and smacked a two-run double to right-center.

“That’s the hardest part about this. I was putting the zeroes on the board,” Peralta said. “That’s what I try to do. And then everything changed just quickly after one out. Crazy.”

A wild pitch two batters later brought home Hoerner, who otherwise would not have scored, to make it 3-0, Chicago.

Peralta was pitching despite being levied with a five-game suspension following his ejection Tuesday. He appealed the suspension in order to remain on regular rest and pitch an important game against the Cubs.

Peralta confirmed he plans to drop the appeal Monday and serve his suspension. That would allow him to return Saturday.

Offense had no chance against Cubs starters

The Brewers offense came alive against Chicago’s bullpen each of the first two games but it was feeble against the starters.

Cubs starting pitchers Hayden Wesneski, Jameson Taillon and Javier Assad all had their way with the Brewers by seizing control of the strike zone early in counts and getting hitters to chase when traffic hit.

Assad followed up seven scoreless by Wesneski on Friday and six shutout from Taillon a day later with six innings’ worth of zeroes in the finale. Assad not only followed his predecessors in result but also in process.

After the Brewers went 3 for 16 with men on base against Wesneski and Taillon, they were a paltry 0 for 9 in those situations against Assad. They hit just .120 with no extra-base hits with runners on against Cubs starters in the series and didn’t have a single hit in 10 at-bats with a man in scoring position.

“He’s a pitcher, man,” Murphy said of Assad. “He’s a pitcher. He pitches above and below. He gets ahead and then he pitches above and below and for young hitters, it’s tough. You feel like you’re always behind in the count. He nibbles the right way. I liked him last year and I knew he’d be effective for these guys this year. Taillon’s been great too.

“(Wesneski) the first night, his breaking ball was exceptional. So we ran into three guys that pitched very, very well. Offensively, we didn’t hit with runners in scoring position. But a great experience for guys. When you have six guys in there that are basically rookies, these things are gonna happen. We’ll learn from this.”

Assad has been quietly excellent for Chicago for a calendar year – he owns the lowest ERA of anyone with at least 100 innings in the majors since last May 1 – but Sunday’s no-show against a starter was more than a one-off for the Brewers.

It’s been a slow going for Milwaukee’s offense against starting pitching of late. Dating back to the start of their previous series with Tampa Bay, opposing starters have a 1.55 ERA and have gone at least six shutout innings in four of six games.

Murphy was asked if he would like to see anything different from his offense in the way they attacked starting pitchers.

“Of course, of course,” he said. “There’s a lot of things you’d like to see differently but you can’t speed up the maturation process. They sometimes have to go through it.”

Tyler Black gets first taste of big-league challenges

It happens to every player that comes up to the majors. More often, it’s sooner rather than later, too.

After a stellar first two games of his career at the plate against the Rays earlier in the week, Tyler Black got an all-too heavy dose of the challenges of big-league pitching in Chicago.

Batting in the middle of the order all three games, Black went 1 for 12 with four strikeouts and a walk. His lone hit was a single.

Black, who was 3 for 7 with two doubles in his first two games, was hitless in six trips to the plate with a runner on base. Four of those at-bats ended in strikeouts, two of which came with a pair of chances with the tying run in scoring position late in Saturday’s contest.

It wasn’t just Black, too, that had a tough time on offense. Murphy indicated after Sunday’s game he felt the Cubs were being particularly careful with William Contreras and Rhys Hoskins and instead going after the Brewers’ young bats.

“They hit their spots well,” Black said. “When you miss pitches it kind of makes it tough for sure. It gives those guys an opportunity to hit their spots so definitely can’t miss pitches, but we got to give them some credit. They hit their spots.”

One of those strikeouts was a moment where Murphy chose not to pinch hit for Black, by doing so showing confidence in a player the Brewers believe will be an impactful bat in the long run.

In the ninth inning Saturday, Milwaukee was down a run with men on first and second. Cubs reliever Hector Neris, a right-hander who has reverse splits thanks in large part to his splitter, was on the mound and Murphy chose to stick with Black, a lefty who was 0 for 4 on the day, rather than go with Joey Ortiz, a right-handed hitter.

“When you analyze all of it, and you use your baseball experience of what that would mean for Tyler Black, who we have trending as a really good offensive player as really good offensive player,” Murphy said. “The move was to leave him in there. But, yes, I did consider (pinch-hitting).”

In all, Black took the weekend as a learning experience even if the results didn’t go how he wanted.

“The only thing that matters is winning,” Black said. “Obviously kind of thrown right in the fire. I wouldn’t want it any other way. I really felt the intensity. Looking forward to the future of that, for sure.”

This article originally appeared on Milwaukee Journal Sentinel: Division race between Cubs and Brewers may just come down to the wire