MILWAUKEE -- If Friday's game was a standalone fact-finding mission to determine why the Brewers are having a significantly better contention window than the one that recently slammed shut on the White Sox, without significantly more name value, the surface-level takeaways might doom this franchise to 40 years in the desert.
Or just in the infield dirt.
Blake Perkins grounding a ball off the first base to hoodwink Gavin Sheets (before later robbing him of a homer in the eighth), Brice Turang choking up to nearly halfway up the bat to roll a game-tying single through the right side, William Contreras putting a hard rollover through the left side for the go-ahead run, and Christian Yelich check-swing bouncing a ball down the third base line for his 300th career double, were all just part of a six-run Brewers seventh that made a ninth-straight loss fait accompli.
But not only were those not even all the ground ball hits the Brewers collected in the seventh, they composed only a small sample of the 16 hits they had on the night at launch angles of five degrees or lower. Milwaukee actually only singled on 18 of their 23 hits on what became an interminably long evening, but other than Joey Ortiz and Jake Bauers hitting ropes to right in the second and eight respectively, the doubles were of a hustle or 'explicit instructions to run on Sox outfield arms' variety.
Brewers hitting drew six walks on the night and their at-bat quality applied constant pressure, but it would be tempting to slap a "DON'T TRY THIS AT HOME" label on these highlights if not for the dispiriting knowledge that the White Sox already have.
"We are going to look at it, of course," Pedro Grifol said of his team's infield positioning. "Not just us, but our analytics department is going to look at it. We get a report after every game for tomorrow to see where those groundballs were, and where we were. Overall, we’ve been ok. We’ve been right around average to maybe a tick above at times, a tick below at times. Today was definitely something we have to look at."
The moxie Michael Soroka showed to strike out a pair with the bases loaded to end the sixth and briefly protect a 5-4 Sox lead deserved a better fate than being associated with the disastrous frame that followed. But the way things imploded on him, John Brebbia (who retired one of five batters faced) and Jared Shuster, lent an extra note of appreciation to Erick Fedde's four runs in five innings, which might have otherwise been best described as "strange."
Fedde walked four but threw first pitch-strikes to 20 of 27 hitters faced. He allowed a season-high nine hits, and while it would be generous to say he got BABIP'd, very little of his contact was driven in the air. Three turns of the batting order in five innings reflects the constant turmoil, but the Brewers went 2-for-14 with runners in scoring position against him. Things eventually evened out for them.
"You don't accidentally get 23 hits," Fedde said, but added. "As a pitcher if you're trying to limit damage, balls on the ground are usually a good thing and keep the slug down."
More traditional swing-and-miss stuff might have turned this bevy of hard grounders into more manageable contact, but a lesser pitcher would've crumbled sooner. Tim Hill was warming during the Brewers three-run fourth, but Fedde lasted to finish off the fifth by sneaking a high cutter past Blake Perkins for his eighth strikeout, stranding a pair.
His roar of triumph felt earned in the moment as he left with a lead, and it's important to take your joy as it comes.
One of the best Sox offensive efforts of the nine-game skid saw them take leads of 3-1 and 5-4 in the first half of the night. When Korey Lee--the DH for the evening--followed his go-ahead infield single in the fifth by stealing second and taking third when the throw kicked off his foot into shallow left-center as he slid, it felt like it could be the White Sox' night.
Feelings can be misleading.
Bullet points:
*Danny Mendick was hit in the helmet flap by a Myers changeup in the third and remained face-down in the infield dirt for more than a beat. While a Mendick ailment set in motion the chain of events that prompted Bryan Ramos' major league debut, he stayed in the game and played the duration.
"Thank God for that C-flap," Mendick said postgame. "The seams are on the helmet, that’s where it hit it."
*The 23 hits allowed were a season-high. The previous high was 13. The Brewers had a .658 BABIP for the night.
*Paul DeJong's third inning home run off former Charlotte Knight Tobias Myers puts him at eight on the year. Korey Lee and Eloy Jiménez are tied at five, and Jiménez is out of commission for a while.
