SAN FRANCISCO — Freddy Peralta lost the handle on his fastball. His defense couldn’t get a grasp of the ball in their gloves.
And the Milwaukee Brewers, subsequently, lost their grip on the ballgame.
A messy sixth inning that saw Peralta falter on the mound and the Brewers bungle the ball in the field for the second time in three days proved costly in a 4-2 loss to the San Francisco Giants on Wednesday, April 23, at Oracle Park.
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“We have to play defense,” said Brewers catcher William Contreras. “We have to make the plays to be better to win the game. We have a defensive team. We have to make (the plays).”
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With their offense fledgling against San Francisco Giants right-hander Logan Webb, the Brewers needed Peralta to be spotless on a bone-chilling evening – and he was through the first five innings.
The sixth, though, was a different story.
Peralta allowed consecutive singles to open the inning, but the real cutlass to the Brewers’ chances to wriggle away with a win was a walk to load the bases after getting ahead two strikes to none.
What ensued for the Giants was a four-run frame, which accounted for all the scoring as they downed the Brewers behind a dominant showing from Webb and late heroics on the mound from Camilo Doval.
One day after putting up 11 runs, the Brewers were kept off the board for 6⅔ by the Giants ace. Webb pounded the strike zone, struck out six and scattered six hits and three walks after some early-inning shakiness.
“He was looking great,” Peralta said. “He had three innings (in a row) of less than 12 pitches. He was super great.”
A late rally fell short in the ninth. Brice Turang made things interesting with a bases-loaded, two-run double to draw Milwaukee within two, but the Giants then relieved Ryan Walker with Doval. He proceeded to make quick work of Jackson Chourio and Christian Yelich and slam the door.
Freddy Peralta falters first
After five relatively crisp innings, the wheels fell off for Peralta.
Willy Adames led off with a frozen rope back up the middle and moved to second on Jung Hoo Lee’s ensuing single. Peralta got ahead, 0-2, to Matt Chapman before uncorking four straight pitches not even close to the zone.
It wasn’t a death knell, but that put the Brewers on the brink in the game.
“I think first of, you’re respecting Chapman,” manager Pat Murphy said. “It’s first and second, a zero-zero ballgame and he was trying to make pitches. He just wasn’t able to, but he’s 96 pitches in at that point on a cold night with a lot of emotion.”
The walk ended Peralta’s night, though he seemed postgame to have expected to stay in and face the next batter, Wilmer Flores.
Instead, Murphy popped out of the dugout and summoned Nick Mears from the bullpen. At little fault of the right-hander, things didn’t get much better from there.
Flores poked a seeing-eye single up the middle to put the Giants ahead, 2-0, and Turang committed an error on a potential inning-ending double play grounder to push the lead to three. Turang was caught ever so slightly in between on how to play a one-hopper off the bat of LaMonte Wade Jr. and it deflected off him.
While Turang’s bat has been scalding hot — he added three more hits Wednesday to push his average to .350 — he hasn’t played defense at his Platinum Glove standard so far in 2025.
“He’s still really really good,” Murphy said. “None of (the errors) are as serious that you’d think he’s got something wrong with him or something like that. He did battle the shoulder injury but he’s still a great fielder.”
Adding further injury was another miscue, this time charged to shortstop Joey Ortiz on a throw that kicked off the glove of an outstretched first baseman Rhys Hoskins and brought home another run.
“We didn’t execute defensively in that inning,” Murphy said. “There’s a couple things. Brice is a great fielder and it’s very unusual, but kind of misread how he wanted to play the ball. And then we didn’t execute on the ball up the middle, the wide throw.”
Add these struggles on defense to the ones the Brewers showed in Monday’s 5-2 defeat to the Giants and there’s a perplexing trend emerging to start the road trip.
“A little surprised,” Peralta said. “Last year we won the Gold Glove as a team. It means that we have very good defense. For some reason, we’ve been struggling a little bit the last couple of games.”
Webb dominates early, Brewers can’t capitalize late
The Brewers’ best scoring chances came early. They put two on with one out in the first before the sinkerballer Webb induced a pair of weak grounders, then loaded the bases with two outs in the second but Chourio struck out for the second time in as many at-bats.
From there, Webb threw only four balls total to the next 11 hitters he faced.
With Webb out of the game, Milwaukee nearly strung together a game-tying rally in the ninth. Hoskins led off with a single against the scuffling Walker and a one-out single by Jake Bauers and Caleb Durbin hit-by-pitch loaded the bases for Turang, who laced a ground-rule double just inside the line in left.
That led to Doval replacing Walker, and made easy work of the Brewers’ No. 2 and 3 hitters in the order, getting Chourio on three pitches by swinging through a slider and then firing a 100 mph cutter that Yelich pounded straight into the ground.
William Contreras gets shaken up
Contreras is used to his body taking a beating as one of the game’s preeminent ironmen at catcher, but he had it rough on Wednesday.
First, he came off the field holding the side of his torso after being thrown out at third base in the sixth. Then came a foul ball from Adames straight to his groin in the seventh.
Contreras said he felt fine after the game and wasn’t going to ask for a day off in the series finale Thursday afternoon — “The boss is the boss,” he said — and confirmed everything else was in order aside from some crucial equipment.
“That tore my cup,” Contreras cracked.
What time is the Brewers game today?
Time: 8:45 p.m. CT.
What channel is the Brewers game on today? TV, stream
TV channel: FanDuel Sports Wisconsin Extra
Stream: FanDuel Sports Network App
Brewers lineup
- Brice Turang 2B
- Jackson Chourio
- Christian Yelich
- William Contreras C
- Sal Frelick RF
- Rhys Hoskins 1B
- Garrett Mitchell CF
- Joey Ortiz SS
- Caleb Durbin 3B
Giants lineup
- Mike Yastrzemski RF
- Willy Adames SS
- Jung Hoo Lee
- Matt Chapman 3B
- Wilmer Flores DH
- Heliot Ramos LF
- LaMonte Wade Jr. 1B
- Patrick Bailey C
- Christian Koss 2B
Brewers schedule
Brewers at Giants, 2:45 p.m. April 24. Milwaukee RHP Tobias Myers (season debut) vs. San Francisco RHP Landen Roupp (2-1, 4.09). TV – FanDuel Sports Wisconsin. Radio – AM-620 WTMJ.
Brewers at Cardinals, 7:15 p.m. April 25. Milwaukee RHP Chad Patrick (1-1, 2.11) vs. St. Louis LHP Matthew Liberatore (1-2, 3.60). TV – FanDuel Sports Wisconsin. Radio – AM-620 WTMJ.
Brewers at Cardinals, 1:15 p.m. April 26. Milwaukee RHP Quinn Priester (1-0, 1.93) vs. St. Louis RHP Sonny Gray (3-0, 3.41). TV – FanDuel Sports Wisconsin. Radio – AM-620 WTMJ.
Brewers at Cardinals, 1:15 p.m. April 26. Milwaukee LHP J osé Quintana (3-0, 0.96) vs. St. Louis RHP Erick Fedde (1-2, 3.33). TV – FanDuel Sports Wisconsin. Radio – AM-620 WTMJ.
