Reds 6, Brewers 0: Lackluster showing does damage to Brewers' fading wild-card hopes

If the Milwaukee Brewers fail to catch Colorado in the wild-card race, and it certainly doesn’t look good at present, they will ponder with dismay the role the last-place Cincinnati Reds played in that fate.

The Brewers came up empty on both sides of the ball Wednesday night at Miller Park, falling in lackluster fashion, 6-0, to the Reds. It was their fourth loss in five games against Cincinnati in September, and the fifth in eight games since the all-star break.

The lopsided defeat dropped the Brewers 2½ games behind Colorado in the race for the second wild card, on the night they were officially eliminated from the NL Central race as Chicago clinched that crown again by beating St. Louis, 5-1. The Brewers have four games to play, one against Cincinnati on Thursday and three against the Cardinals on the road.

BOX SCORE: Reds 6, Brewers 0

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If the Brewers win all four of their remaining games, the Rockies would have to go 1-2 in their season-ending home series against the Los Angeles Dodgers to create a tie and force an extra game in Denver for the second wild card.

The Brewers knew before they took the field the Rockies had pounded Miami, 15-9, at Coors Field to take a temporary two-game lead. That meant they would play twice before the Rockies take the field again after their off day Thursday.

"There’s a challenge in front of us but we have an opportunity,” Brewers manager Craig Counsell said before the game. "Their job, and our job, is to win baseball games.

“We certainly understand that they have to lose a game somewhere along the line for us to have a chance but we’ll just try to keep playing good baseball and understand that we have a chance at this thing. I don’t know that we have to be perfect.

“We’re in this thing and we’re going to be in it for a while.”

Not if they play more games like this one. It got away from the Brewers early as the Reds sent 10 hitters to the plate in the third inning and scored five runs to take a 6-0 lead. The outburst began with a leadoff homer by No. 8 hitter Tucker Barnhart off rookie Brandon Woodruff, who surrendered a two-out shot to Joey Votto in the first.

When pitcher Homer Bailey followed with a double to right-center, it was a sign of the badness to come. Zack Cozart walked with one down, Votto stroked a RBI single to center, Scooter Gennett’s hit to left loaded the bases and Eugenio Suarez singled in another run, ending Woodruff’s night.

In dropping five of eight games to Cincinnati in the second half, the Brewers have allowed 53 runs (6.6 per game). 

As it turned out, the Reds didn’t need nearly that much offense to win the game. Bailey, who entered the game with a 5-9 record and 6.96 ERA, shut them out on four hits over seven innings in by far his best outing of an otherwise rough season.

Adding injury to insult, first baseman Eric Thames fouled a ball off his right foot in the eighth inning and went down for several minutes in agony. He was helped off the field.

The Brewers used nine pitchers, a franchise record for a nine-inning game. 

BEHIND THE BOX SCORE

» By using LHP Josh Hader for 2 2/3 innings and 49 pitches in the 7-6 victory Tuesday, he was unavailable for action in the second game and perhaps again Thursday. The Reds have many dangerous left-handed hitters in their lineup, but Counsell said he didn’t consider using Hader in a shorter burst in the first game to have him available again sooner.

“My feeling is that Josh is better served by using him in bigger chunks,” Counsell said. “It’s something he’s more accustomed to doing, I think. I think we get more outs doing it that way. This is how we chose to deploy him this year and I think it’s been effective and useful.”

STAT SHEET

» LHP Wei-Chung Wang never gets a chance to break a sweat in his appearances. He threw two pitches, exiting after allowing a RBI single to Scott Schebler in the third. In eight outings as a September call-up, Wang has thrown 32 pitches. It hasn’t helped that he has allowed five hits, including a homer, in 1 1/3 innings.

TAKEAWAY

Which was the team aiming for the playoffs and which was the last-place team? The way Cincinnati dominated this game on both sides of the ball, one never would have known it was the Brewers with so much on the line. A very bad time to produce a clunker.

RECORD

This year: 83-75 (45-38 home; 38-37 away)

Last year: 71-87

ATTENDANCE

Wednesday: 34,882

2017 total: 2,528,429 (31,605 avg.)

Last year: 2,282,800 (28,535 avg.)

NEXT GAME

Thursday: Brewers vs. Reds, 3:10 p.m. Milwaukee LHP Brent Suter (3-2,  3.29) vs. Cincinnati RHP Sal Romano (5-7, 4.43). TV: FS Wisconsin/MLB Network. Radio: FM-94.5.