PHOENIX (AP) — First Milwaukee took three of four in Colorado. Now the Brewers have won two of three in Arizona.
A trip to what usual NL West trouble spots turned out nicely indeed for Milwaukee.
Travis Shaw, Domingo Santana, Christian Yelich and Tyler Saladino homered in the first four innings off Matt Koch, and the Brewers routed the Diamondbacks 8-2 in the series finale on Wednesday.
“We had four homers and I thought we had some near-misses, too,” Brewers manager Craig Counsell said, “so we swung the bats well. Getting a pitch to hit and a pitch to drive, a bunch of our hitters did a nice job today with that.”
Brandon Woodruff (2-0) held the sputtering Arizona offense to one hit in five innings, Daniel Descalso’s two-run homer.
“You give up two runs through three hitters, and then he doesn’t give up a hit the rest of the way,” Counsell said. “He did a nice job. Obviously the run support helped.”
Shaw, who has a team-high 10 home runs, also doubled and scored. He is 10 for 27 on the trip with three home runs and seven RBIs.
“This road trip has been a step in the right direction,” he said, “especially coming off that stretch I was on before that.”
The Brewers have won three of four, outscoring their opponents 23-9.
Arizona, in what manager Torey Lovullo called “a clunker” of a game, finished a 1-6 homestand and has lost seven of eight heading into a nine-game trip. The game drew 16,762, the smallest home crowd for the Diamondbacks this season.
“I don’t think it matters right now if we’re at home or on the road. We’re struggling,” Descalso said. “We need to get better.’”
Koch (2-2) allowed eight runs and nine hits in 4 1/3 innings, his poorest outing since moving into the rotation after Taijuan Walker underwent Tommy John surgery. Koch had faced Clayton Kershaw, Justin Verlander and Max Scherzer in his previous three starts; Arizona won two of those games.
“I don’t think anything was really working for him today,” Lovullo said.
Woodruff, in the rotation because of the rash of injuries to Brewers starters and coming off a rough start at Colorado, struck out six and walked four.
Shaw and Santana hit two-out drives in the first as Milwaukee took a 3-0 lead, but Descalso homered in the bottom half.
Yelich had a two-run homer in the second, and Santana’s leadoff shot in the fourth put the Brewers ahead 6-2.
Jesus Aguilar singled and Shaw doubled to chase Koch. Santana had an RBI groundout against T.J. McFarland, and Jonathan Villar hit a run-scoring double.
Arizona, meanwhile, has scored three or fewer runs in 11 of its last 14 games, including two runs in each of the games against the Brewers.
“Obviously a frustrating homestand but we’ve got to put it behind us,” Lovullo said. “I know that these guys are battle-tested. They fight. They fight together. This is one of those situations, one of those parts of the season, where things aren’t clicking. Things are not moving in the direction we want them to every single moment, and we’ve just got to keep plowing away. It’s just baseball. That’s how it goes.”
TRAINER’S ROOM
Brewers: OF/1B Ryan Braun missed his third straight game with back tightness.
Diamondbacks: 3B Jake Lamb (shoulder) was scheduled to make another rehab start Wednesday night for Class A Visalia and could join the big league club this weekend in New York.
UP NEXT
Brewers: Milwaukee finishes a 10-game trip with a three-game series at Minnesota. LH Brent Suter (2-3, 5.14 ERA) starts for the Brewers and RH Kyle Gibson (1-1, 3.43) goes for the Twins in Friday night’s series opener.
Diamondbacks: RHP Zack Godley (4-2, 4.08) is to start Friday at the New York Mets and RHP Jacob deGrom (3-0, 1.83).
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