Cleveland's Carlos Carrasco too much for Brewers to handle

A day after riding a couple home runs — including an improbable blast by Brent Suter — to a one-run victory over reigning American League Cy Young Award winner Corey Kluber, the Milwaukee Brewers saw their offensive struggles return.

Carlos Carrasco was good the first couple innings, got dialed in by the third and in total control the rest of the way as the Brewers completed their brief five-game homestand with a 6-2 matinee defeat at Miller Park.

Carrasco, a nine-year veteran, struck out a season-high 14 in a 117-pitch, complete game with Milwaukee scoring once apiece in the seventh and the ninth to narrowly avoid tying their 2017 season total of eight shutouts just six weeks into 2018.

"Tough," said third baseman Travis Shaw, first to get the Brewers on the board in the seventh with his RBI groundout. "Spotting his pitches. Slider was really good today. I think that was pretty evident with some of the swings we had throughout the day. He pitched all nine.

"We were kind of waiting to get to the ‘pen, but he was in total control from the get-go."

Lorenzo Cain singled to lead off the day for the Brewers and Jonathan Villar singled in the second. After that, it was almost all swings and misses as Carrasco settled in.

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The right-hander struck out the side in the third and the fourth, and struck out the final two batters he faced in the fifth. Domingo Santana was the lone Milwaukee hitter to make contact over that span, and he grounded to second base.

Brewers starter Junior Guerra was just as sharp until the fourth, when the Indians doubled, singled, doubled and then got a three-run home run from Tyler Naquin to hand Carrasco a 4-0 lead that proved to be more than enough.

A Francisco Lindor home run off Corey Knebel to start the seventh stretched Cleveland's lead to 5-0 before Milwaukee finally got to Carrasco.

Christian Yelich and Jesús Aguilar each singled, and Shaw drove in Yelich with his grounder to make it 5-1 and avert the shutout bid. Carrasco kept the Brewers right there, though, following Shaw's grounder with strikeouts of Santana and Villar.

Carrasco helped his own cause by singling in a run in the ninth, then took the mound in the bottom half with his pitch total at 96. Cain doubled to lead off, moved to third on a Yelich grounder and scored on an Aguilar sacrifice fly before Carrasco fanned Shaw to end it.

“I thought we had some good swings the first couple innings then once he got his breaking ball going we didn’t have many good swings after that," manager Craig Counsell said. "He got his slider going and it was a really good pitch. He was making our guys miss by a pretty good amount. It was sharp. Rarely in a bad spot. He was excellent.”

“After the second inning, when he got to the bottom of our lineup, that third inning is kind of when he locked it in.”

It was the 10th complete game of Carrasco's career and second this season. He also became the first Cleveland pitcher to throw multiple complete games this early in the year since Justin Masterson in 2013.

Carrasco's six straight strikeouts in the third and fourth fell one shy of tying the Indians franchise record, set by Kluber in 2014 and he struck out every batter he faced at least once aside from Hernán Pérez, who entered the game in the eighth.

"He can throw his slider for strikes and for (tough) balls," Aguilar said. "It’s tough when he’s got that two-seamer, too. It’s a tough adjustment with the slider. He threw all his pitches for strikes. He was dominating the strike zone with every pitch.

"A good day for him."

All things considered a split against Kluber and Carrasco was a satisfactory outcome, although the continued lack of offense remains troubling.

"Coming in here we knew this was going to be a tough series with Kluber and Carrasco," said Shaw. "One out of two is OK. You’d like to win both, but we’ll take one out of two against those two."

Save for the four-run fourth, it wasn't a terrible outing for Guerra. He allowed six hits and two walks but struck out nine — the second-highest total of his career — and in general looked much sharper than he did in his previous outing.

“Junior threw the ball really well, he really did," said Counsell. "He struck out five the first time through. They got a little rally going and he kind of hung a split with some guys on base. He throws that pitch with nobody on base maybe it’s a one-run inning, or a two-run inning and we are right in the game.

"Naquin got him with some guys on base. He came back out the next inning and threw the ball really well. It was just one bad pitch that cost him.”

The Brewers now head out on a second consecutive three-city road trip. This one will be more challenging, as it begins with four games at Colorado and finishes with three at Arizona and three at Minnesota.

All three teams made the playoffs last season. The Rockies and Diamondbacks are currently 1-2 in the National League West while the Twins are two games under .500 but still in second place in the AL Central, a game behind the Indians.

“(Bench coach) Pat Murphy always says there are no Western Illinois on the schedule," Counsell said. "You take the series as they come and you move on. The Indians are a really good baseball team and we faced their two best pitchers and we got a split.

"The Rockies have been hot and the Diamondbacks have been one of the better teams in baseball. It’s a challenging road series for sure.”