The Milwaukee Brewers will turn to right-hander Aaron Civale on Thursday afternoon in the finale of the three-game series against the visiting San Francisco Giants, who need to string together some victories to remain in postseason contention.
Civale (4-8, 4.84 ERA) will be opposed by Giants rookie right-hander Hayden Birdsong (3-3, 4.57).
The Brewers evened the series with a 5-3 victory on Wednesday, scoring all of their runs with two outs in the fifth inning. William Contreras capped the outburst against Giants starter Kyle Harrison with a two-run homer.
Contreras is hitting .304 (24-for-79) over his past 21 games with six homers and 17 RBIs. Milwaukee center fielder Blake Perkins also has been hot, batting .354 (17-for-48) over his past 18 games after a 2-for-3 outing on Wednesday.
Civale, acquired from the Tampa Bay Rays in early July, is 2-2 with a 4.35 ERA in eight starts with the Brewers. He has served up eight homers in 41 1/3 innings for his new team.
Civale lasted just four innings in his most recent outing, allowing three runs on four hits and four walks while fanning three in a no-decision against the Oakland A’s on Friday. The visiting Brewers went on to win 11-3.
“I’m proud of him,” Brewers manager Pat Murphy said afterward. “It shows the experience of him and the wherewithal to be able to get four innings. He didn’t have his good stuff. He wasn’t finding the plate early, he was behind in the count over and over. To just bob and weave and get through four, that was important.”
In two career starts against the Giants, Civale is 1-1 with a 2.70 ERA.
He will hope to follow the strong performance of the Brewers’ Wednesday starter, Freddy Peralta, who allowed just two hits over six scoreless innings.
San Francisco got a run in the seventh and two in the eighth, but Brewers closer Devin Williams, who missed the season’s first 104 games with a back injury, tossed a perfect ninth for his sixth save in seven opportunities since his return.
The Brewers ended a two-game skid and remained nine games ahead of the second-place Chicago Cubs in the National League Central, the largest gap for any division leader. Milwaukee moved to within 1 1/2 games of the Phillies for the second overall seed in the NL.
The Giants fell for the fourth time in six games and dropped 6 1/2 games behind the Atlanta Braves for the final NL wild-card spot.
San Francisco will look to bounce back behind Birdsong, who made his major league debut on June 26 and has tapered off recently. He went 3-0 with a 2.45 ERA over five starts in July, but he is 0-3 with a 7.80 ERA in four starts this month, not lasting more than 4 2/3 innings in any of them.
In his most recent outing, however, he allowed just one hit over four innings. Birdsong struck out five and walked four in an 80-pitch outing but did not get the decision in the Giants’ 6-5, 10-inning loss to the Seattle Mariners.
“He’s had his pitch count up, but he threw 39 strikes,” Giants manager Bob Melvin said afterward. “At that point in time, in the fifth, he just wasn’t getting any better with the command.”
–Field Level Media
