The Milwaukee Brewers continue the western portion of their schedule — this time on the road — when they visit San Francisco for the opener of a three-game series Monday night.
Brewers right-hander Brandon Sproat (3-5, 5.09 ERA) and Giants righty Tyler Mahle (2-9, 5.31) are the scheduled starters in the clubs’ second head-to-head of the season, with the teams having split a four-game set in Milwaukee last month.
Neither Sproat nor Mahle pitched in that series.
The Brewers flew west Sunday night after having completed a 7-2 homestand with an 11-2 shellacking of the Colorado Rockies. They travel to Anaheim, Calif., for a weekend series against the Angels after they leave San Francisco.
The three contests against Colorado began a stretch in which the Brewers will play either National League West or American League West opponents in 19 of 26 games.
After the Angels series, the Brewers return home for a week, then visit the San Diego Padres and Los Angeles Dodgers on another trip west. The stretch concludes with a three-game visit from the Seattle Mariners on Aug. 18-20.
When last seen on the road, the Brewers were getting swept in a three-game series by the Pittsburgh Pirates on July 11 and 12.
Sproat pitched the first of the Pittsburgh games, an outing in which his manager, Pat Murphy, criticized him for allowing 28 foul balls, many on two-strike counts.
“He’s not (committed) in his put-away pitch,” Murphy observed to the media after the 7-6 defeat in the first game of a July 11 doubleheader. “You’ve got to be able to put people away. Not just strike people out — put them away. He’s got that really good sinker. He’s got a good sweeper. He’s got a very capable cutter. Just didn’t get it done.”
The 25-year-old has made just one start since, and experienced similar issues. He needed 99 pitches to record 14 outs, pulled in the fifth inning of a 4-0 home loss to the New York Mets last Tuesday.
He has never pitched against the Giants.
The Brewers, on the other hand, are quite familiar with Mahle. They’ve roughed up the 31-year-old to the tune of a 1-3 record and 5.36 ERA over nine lifetime starts.
Mahle has pitched better than his overall record might indicate in his last two outings, limiting the Rockies and Kansas City Royals to four runs in 12 combined innings. San Francisco split those games.
The Giants enter the series hoping to put a wrap on their third consecutive winning homestand. They took two of three from the Angels despite a 4-3 defeat Sunday.
The series will be San Francisco’s last at home before the Aug. 3 trade deadline, which means every performance by a home-team player could be his last as a Giant.
One guy often mentioned in trade rumors, Rafael Devers, overcame the distraction to homer in each of San Francisco’s home wins over the Angels.
“We’re aware that our record is not very positive as far as adjustments that maybe the front office is going to make,” he noted to reporters over the weekend. “It’s something that I don’t think about. It’s something that they’re going to have to (think about), but we’re just concentrating on what we can control.”
–Field Level Media
