With Braun heading back to DL and a four-game losing streak, Brewers are facing adversity

Tom Haudricourt
Milwaukee Journal Sentinel
Ryan Braun catches a fly ball in the third inning against the Diamondbacks on Thursday night at Miller Park.

The rebuilding Milwaukee Brewers haven’t faced a lot of adversity to this point of the season, but they’re facing some now.

The Brewers absorbed bad news on a few fronts Thursday night at Miller Park, including their season-high fourth consecutive loss, which knocked them from first place in the National League Central after an eight-day stay.

But the 4-0 loss to surging Arizona was not really the worst news of the evening. In only his third game back from the disabled list, Ryan Braun exited with left calf tightness and will return to the DL on Friday for an unknown period of time.

One of the reasons Braun was on the DL was a slight calf strain, and he quickly discovered it was not ready for extended play.

“Same calf, same situation,” Braun said afterward. “I knew, obviously, when I came back I wasn’t at 100% but I was hoping it was good enough. I was optimistic I’d be able to work through it.

“As a competitor, you never want to miss any games. And with where we’re at as a team, I was hoping I’d be able to work through it and contribute, and do whatever I could to keep us winning games. It actually felt better today than the last couple of games I played in.

“It just grabbed on me when I went to catch the pop up to end the third inning. The first couple of games I played in, I was guarding it pretty good. Today, I felt a little better, so I was trying to drive off the toe a little more to engage the calf. I just wasn’t ready.”

The likelihood this time is that Braun will miss more than the minimum of 10 days, because the Brewers have to make sure it’s 100% healed or risk a worse injury. They did catch a break when catcher Manny Piña escaped with a bruised left elbow when drilled by a pitch from Arizona’s Robbie Ray in the second inning.

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BOX SCORE: Diamondbacks 4, Brewers 0

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Piña went down in agony and felt numbness and tingling in his fingers, but it subsided later and he isn’t expected to miss much time, if any.

“I thought it was worse but now it feels better,” he said. “My elbow is not broken so that’s good news. My hand was numb for two minutes. That scared me. We will see what I’m feeling tomorrow.”

Even with that bit of a break, the Brewers are at a crossroads. For a rebuilding team, they overachieved for seven weeks, moved into first place in the division and raised the hopes of all involved that maybe things were moving ahead of schedule.

Now, the Brewers must dig a foothold or give back everything they had gained.

“It’s a little bit of adversity,” manager Craig Counsell said. “It’s all right. That’s part of the season. We’re equipped to handle it, and we will.

“It’s just part of it. It’s not good news losing Ryan again, obviously, but we got a little lucky with Manny, so we’re all right there. So, we’ll go on.”

With right-hander Junior Guerra slated to return from his own calf injury Friday to rejoin the rotation, the Brewers could open the needed roster spot merely with the DL move on Braun. Counsell then would use other players in left such as Eric Sogard, Hernán Pérez and Nick Franklin, as he has done in the past.

They could do something more dramatic such as calling up No. 1 prospect Lewis Brinson from Class AAA Colorado Springs, but they might not be ready to make such a move. Whatever happens, the Brewers need to find a way to re-generate some momentum.

After surrendering a couple of early home runs, right-hander Zach Davies gave the Brewers a chance to come back by holding Arizona to three runs over six innings. But the offense never got on track against Ray, who allowed two harmless hits and no walks with nine strikeouts over seven innings.

A once-potent offense has managed only 12 hits in the last three games and now must forge on without Braun.

“Every team is going to go through it every year,” Braun said of the slide. “It’s not like we thought we were going to go undefeated the rest of the year or continue to win every series. You know that it’s going to happen, so you just continue to compete and know that you’re always one game from turning it around.

“Like I said earlier, the reason we’ve had success is because we’ve had a lot of guys contributing. We’re not dependent on one or two guys. Up and down our batting order, everybody is contributing.

“There are a lot of guys in the bullpen throwing the ball well. All of our starters are keeping us in games. Hopefully, we win the next one and that turns things back around.”