Philadelphia 5, Milwaukee 2
When: 8:10 PM ET, Friday, April 22, 2016
Where: Miller Park, Milwaukee, Wisconsin
Temperature:
Indoors
Umpires:
Home -
Rob Drake, 1B -
Carlos Torres, 2B -
Jim Wolf, 3B -
Sam Holbrook
Attendance:
23439
By The Sports Xchange
MILWAUKEE -- After two less-than-stellar outings, Aaron Nola was looking for a bounce back performance Friday night at Milwaukee.
And he certainly got it, striking out seven Brewers batters while allowing just one run over seven innings of work to lead the Philadelphia Phillies to a 5-2 victory in front of an announced crowd of 23,439 at Miller Park.
Making his fourth start of the season, Nola (1-2) struck out Domingo Santana to open the game but followed with a walk to Scooter Gennett and a single to Ryan Braun. He struck out Jonathan Lucroy for the sound out but faced a 1-0 deficit when Chris Carter put the Brewers on the board with a base hit to right.
But it was smooth sailing from there.
Nola got out of the inning with a force out, stranded a pair of runners with two outs in the second then retired 16 of the next 17 batters before handing things over to the bullpen in the eighth inning.
"Nola looked a little shaky at first and then he settled down," Philadelphia manager Pete Mackinin said. "He started pitching inside a little bit more, which made a big difference."
His seven strikeouts Friday increased his season total to 30, moving into the National League lead with Dodgers ace Clayton Kershaw.
"After the last outing, I felt like I really needed to command the baseball inside a lot more," Nola said. "After the first couple innings I feel like I got more comfortable throwing inside to lefties and righties, especially lefties tonight. So, I think that kind of opened a little more stuff up for me tonight.
"Pitching inside for strikes and for balls definitely helps open up my other pitches, opened up the outside corner a little bit on certain guys. So, I feel like come in tonight, that pitch, I felt like was a big key for me."
Nola's dominance helped bide time for the Phillies' offense to figure out a way to get to Milwaukee starter Zach Davies, who was making his second start of the season.
Davies (0-2) worked himself into and out of trouble over the first few innings, but got bailed out twice by Lucroy, who thwarted a pair of stolen base attempts.
A double by catcher Cameron Rupp and a two-out single by left fielder Darin Ruf tied the game at 1-1 in the fourth and Philadelphia created some breathing room an inning later when Freddy Galvis drove in Odubel Herrera with a triple, then scored on Franco's first of two home runs on the day.
"He gave up some hits but the breaking ball to Franco is what cost him," Brewers manager Craig Counsell said. "Other than that, I thought he pitched well."
A clean sixth inning brought Davies' day to an end. He allowed four runs on nine hits and a walk while striking out five.
In 8 1/3 innings of work this season, he's allowed nine earned runs.
"He made some mistakes up in the zone with his off-speed stuff," Lucroy said. "A guy like him, he’s a big mix-in guy and mixes down in the zone. He was behind in the count and guys got a hitter’s count against him and he made some mistakes up in he zone and they made him pay for it."
Franco added an insurance run in the fifth, tagging left-hander Chris Capuano for his fourth home run of the season. He'd gone 3-for-29 (.103) in his previous seven games but finished with three hits Friday; his first multi-hit game since April 13.
"He (Franco) hit them good," Mackinin said. "That was good to see. We talked to him before the game during batting practice about pulling the ball. A lot of guys work so much on going the opposite field that they don't practice pulling the ball enough. If you think about pulling the ball, then you stay back a little more."
NOTES: Friday marked the start of Philadelphia's second road trip of the season. The Phillies will play 16 of their next 19 games away from Citizens Bank Park. ... Heading into Friday's game, the Phillies had lost 21 of their last 27 meetings with NL Central opponents, including all seven of their meetings with Milwaukee last season. ... The Brewers started the day ranked third in the National League with 65 walks through the first 16 games this season. During that same stretch a year ago, Brewers batters drew just 31 free passes.
Top Game Performances
Starting Pitchers
| Philadelphia |
|
Milwaukee |
|
Aaron Nola
|
Player |
Zach Davies
|
|
Win |
W/L |
Loss |
|
7.0 |
IP |
6.0 |
|
7 |
Strikeouts |
5 |
|
4 |
Hits |
9 |
|
1.29 |
ERA |
6.00 |
Team Stats Summary
| Team |
Hits |
HR |
TB |
Avg |
LOB |
K |
RBI |
BB |
SB |
Errors |
| Philadelphia
|
10 |
2 |
19 |
.286 |
7 |
7 |
5 |
1 |
1 |
0 |
| Milwaukee
|
6 |
0 |
8 |
.182 |
12 |
9 |
2 |
3 |
0 |
0 |
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