Justin Smoak homered and drove in three runs, and the Milwaukee Brewers ended a season-high four-game skid with a 4-2 home win over the struggling Cincinnati Reds on Monday.
The Brewers handed Cincinnati's Trevor Bauer, who entered with a 0.68 ERA, his first loss of the year.
Omar Narvaez homered and Brett Anderson (2-2) allowed only a pair of solo home runs over six-plus innings as the Brewers earned a needed victory following a 4-6 road trip. Josh Hader pitched a scoreless ninth for his sixth save, and he has yet to allow a run or a hit in eight appearances (8 1/3 innings) this season.
Cincinnati, meanwhile, dropped its third in a row as Bauer (3-1) yielded four runs, seven hits and walked two while striking out eight in 6 1/3 innings.
Milwaukee made Bauer work early, forcing him to throw 23 pitches in the first inning. Christian Yelich doubled and later scored on Smoak's two-out single.
Smoak came through again with two outs in the third inning. He crushed a drive to the right field seats for a two-run homer off Bauer to make it 3-0. Smoak has two homers in as many games and six RBIs over that span.
Narvaez gave the Brewers a 4-0 lead with his first home run of the season in the fourth.
Cincinnati got on the board two innings later when Curt Casali drilled one deep to left field for his fourth homer. Teammate Eugenio Suarez made it 4-2 in the seventh when he knocked the ball over the center field wall for his second homer in as many contests and fifth of the year.
The Reds hit into three double plays on the night.
--Field Level Media
Cincinnati | Milwaukee | |
Trevor Bauer | Player | Brett Anderson |
Loss | W/L | Win |
6.1 | IP | 6.0 |
8 | Strikeouts | 3 |
7 | Hits | 5 |
5.68 | ERA | 3.00 |
Cincinnati | Milwaukee | |
Nick Castellanos | Player | Omar Narvaez |
2 | Hits | 2 |
0 | RBI | 1 |
0 | HR | 1 |
2 | TB | 6 |
.500 | Avg | .500 |
Team | Hits | HR | TB | Avg | LOB | K | RBI | BB | SB | Errors |
Cincinnati | 5 | 2 | 11 | .172 | 9 | 9 | 2 | 2 | 0 | 0 |
Milwaukee | 7 | 2 | 16 | .226 | 11 | 10 | 4 | 2 | 3 | 0 |