Brewers lost to the Phillies
MILWAUKEE — Brewers reliever David Riske stood at his locker Thursday and essentially proclaimed, “My bad.”
“I blew it,” Riskie said. “It’s unacceptable.”
Riske was upset after consecutive two-out hits on 0-and-2 pitches in the eighth inning, including a two-run double to red-hot Phillies outfielder Pat Burrell that forced the Brewers to settle for a 3-1 loss in front of 23,905 fans at Miller Park. The teams split a two-game series.
Riske may have been a bit too hard on himself because a quiet Brewers offense also played a part in Thursday’s loss. Milwaukee starter Jeff Suppan limited the Phillies to a run in seven strong innings, but his hitters scored only once in Suppan’s defense despite nine hits off five Philly pitchers, including three hits apiece by Ryan Braun and Bill Hall.
Left-hander Jamie Moyer scattered six of those hits including Braun’s RBI single in six-plus innings of work. Tom Gordon escaped a bases-loaded, one-out jam in the seventh, J.C. Romero and Ryan Madesn teamed on a scoreless eighth and Brad Lidge took the ninth for his fifth save.
It’s a team game, but Riske took the blame.
“The team played great and my inning was going great [before the] 0-and-2 hits,” said Riske. “That can’t happen. I don’t care who you are, who was up there. I don’t care if it was Babe Ruth or Barry Bonds. You can’t give up 0-and-2 hits.”
Riske might have been pitching with a cushion had the Brewers not missed a prime scoring opportunity in the previous half-inning. With the score knotted at 1 in the bottom of the seventh, Hall, who entered the day in an 0-for-18 slump, doubled for his third hit off Moyer. Hall moved to third on a J.J. Hardy single that prompted a call for the right-hander Gordon, a dramatic change from soft-tossing lefty Moyer.
The move prompted manager Ned Yost to lift Suppan, who might have stayed in the game to bunt had Moyer remained. Gordon struck out pinch-hitter Tony Gwynn Jr. looking at a curveball.
“I had a job to do at that particular time and I didn’t do it,” Gwynn said.
Jason Kendall followed with a walk that loaded the bases with one out. But Rickie Weeks struck out looking at a fastball and Gabe Kapler grounded into a force out that ended the inning.
“We just couldn’t get that run across,” Yost said.
The Phillies quickly took advantage of the Brewers’ missed opportunity. Riske relieved Suppan and struck out the first two hitters of the eighth inning, then walked Greg Dobbs.
The walk did not irk Riske as much as the next two outcomes. Against both Chase Utley and Burrell, Riske got ahead in the count, 0-and-2. But he tried to spike a split-fingered fastball to Utley and missed up, allowing Utley to poke a single the opposite way. Then he missed his spot with an up-and-in fastball to Burrell, who yanked a go-ahead hit to left.
“You can’t do that on 0-and-2 counts to both hitters,” Riske said. “Suppan pitched great, the team played great and I blew it. You can’t make those pitches in that situation.”
Of the offering to Burrell he said, “It was a really bad pitch.”
The two earned runs ballooned Riske’s ERA to 7.36 in 10 appearances since he signed a three-year free agent contract. He has walked eight batters in 11 innings and surrendered 13 hits. Over his last three appearances, Riske has allowed seven earned runs in two innings.
“Today was actually the best I’ve felt all season [in terms of] my stuff,” Riske said. “I felt kind of back to normal. It was just two bad pitches. … You can’t even do that in rookie ball or high school ball. You can’t do that. You can’t give up two 0-and-2 hits.”
Suppan worked seven innings and allowed a run on five hits, including Jayson Werth’s solo home run leading off the sixth inning. The Phillies’ leadoff man reached safely in each of the first three innings, but Suppan induced a double play each time to avoid early damage.
Dating to last season, Suppan is 5-1 with a 3.69 ERA in his last 11 starts. He has surrendered two or fewer runs in four of his five starts this year but remains 1-0.
“I’ve only pitched five games,” Suppan said. “The idea is to go out and keep making pitches. That’s what my plan is. … We just didn’t come out on top.”
The Brewers ran into some key outs on the bases. Twice Moyer picked off a runner breaking from first to second base — Weeks in the first inning after a leadoff walk, and Hall in the fourth after a single. Hall’s hit would have driven in a run had Corey Hart not tried stretching a leadoff double into a triple. He was thrown out easily at third base.
After Hall was picked off, J.J. Hardy worked a walk. That meant the Brewers’ first three hitters in the inning reached safely, yet no one batted with a runner in scoring position.
“We were trying to get some stuff going [against Moyer],” Hall said. “He just continues to read. We tried to wait as long as we could to get him to commit, and obviously our two tries didn’t go so well for us.”
