MILWAUKEE BREWERS

If Brewers don't catch Cubs, at least they'll know why. They can't hit Pirates' pitchers.

Tom Haudricourt
Milwaukee Journal Sentinel
Ryan Braun of the Brewers has some words for home plate umpire Adrian Johnson after being called out on strikes during the second inning against the Pirates on Sunday.

If the Pittsburgh Pirates’ pitching is this stinking good, what are they doing in fourth place?

That had to be what the Brewers were thinking late Sunday afternoon after yet another frustrating day against Pittsburgh’s pitching staff. If the Brewers do fall short in their bid to overtake the Cubs in the NL Central – and the odds are definitely against them – at least they’ll know why they failed.

Because they couldn’t beat Pittsburgh.

In losing, 3-1, to the Pirates on Saturday night and 3-2 on Sunday at Miller Park, the Brewers went 16 consecutive innings over one stretch with nary a run. Is that any way to run a pennant race?

THE GAME:5 Takeaways | Box score

RELATED:Brewers' magic number dips to 10

MLB:Live scoreboard, box scores, standings, statistics

“They’re not going to give you anything, there’s no question about that,” said manager Craig Counsell, whose team’s streak of seven consecutive series triumphs came to an end with a screeching halt.

“We were quiet with the bats. We pitched really well again this weekend. Just a little quiet with the bats the last two days.”

The problem for the Brewers is that this has been going on for more than two days. They dropped to 5-11 against the Pirates, who are 63-69 against all other major-league clubs. In those 11 losses, the Brewers have scored a total of 23 runs, an average of 2.09 per game.

The only good news on the day was the Cubs’ 2-1 loss at home to the Cincinnati Reds, who next come to Miller Park. That kept the status quo of the Brewers trailing by 2 ½ games, three in the loss column. But status quo is not a good thing with the season down to two weeks.

Of their 12 remaining games, three are next weekend in Pittsburgh, where Trevor Williams will be waiting for them once again. The hottest pitcher in the majors since the all-star break (1.19 ERA), Williams never let the Brewers up for air Sunday, throttling them on two hits over six innings with seven strikeouts.

In two starts against the Brewers this season, Williams has shut them out for 13 innings, allowing three hits and striking out 14. That doesn’t bode well for when they face him again, either Friday or Saturday at PNC Park. The loser in those first two meetings was Jhoulys Chacín, who likely will match up against Williams one more time.

Williams doesn’t throw particularly hard, averaging just over 90 mph with his fastball, which he throws 70% of the time. But Counsell said hitters don’t seem to get good looks at that pitch, the same complaint opponents made when facing Brewers rookie Freddy Peralta this season.

“That’s the mystery of those fastballs,” Counsell said. “They’re just a little bit different for guys. They do something different than everybody else’s fastball. He gets some good extension, it looks like, and it’s the feeling that it kind of gets on a hitter.”

After sleepwalking through the first eight innings offensively, the Brewers finally showed some life in the ninth inning when Jesús Aguilar led off with a home run and pinch-hitter Domingo Santana followed with another on the next pitch from flame-throwing closer Felipe Vazquez.

Considering Vazquez had allowed only two homers all season in 63 appearances, that two at-bat outburst certainly was noteworthy. But there are no such things as morale victories in the big leagues, and Vazquez put down the next three hitters to close out the Brewers.

So, if the Brewers are going to make a late run at knocking off Chicago, it will take something dramatic. The Cubs play the next three days in Arizona against a Diamondbacks team crumbling under the weight of a brutal finishing schedule, then return to Chicago for their final 10 games – three across town against the White Sox, followed by four games against Pittsburgh and three against St. Louis at Wrigley Field.

The Pirates play the Cubs tough, but not nearly as tough as they play the Brewers, losing eight of 15 with that one series remaining at Wrigley.

“It is frustrating,” said Chacín, who for the second consecutive outing was saddled with a loss he didn’t deserve (three hits, two runs in five innings). “We just can’t hit the Pirates.

“We have to find a way to beat the Pirates. We’ve got one more series there, so we have to see how we can beat them.”

The Brewers are 11-5 against the Reds this season – the only NL Central foe they have a winning record against – but you can’t take anything for granted this time of year. The Pirates certainly aren’t rolling over, and Cincy won’t do it, either.

“We’ve got to control what we can control,” Aguilar said. “All we can control right now is going out there and winning games. We can’t worry about what anybody else is doing. We’ve just got to worry about ourselves.”