Pratt and Lara Torch Colorado, Brewers Roll 8-5
Cooper Pratt went 3-for-3 with a home run, three RBI, and a sacrifice fly, doing damage in every phase of Milwaukee's 8-5 win over Colorado on July 25. Luis Lara matched him with a 2-for-2 night of his own — three RBI, two runs scored — and the two of them essentially decided this game before Colorado could mount anything resembling a real threat.
Milwaukee seized control early and never truly let go. Lara opened the scoring in the second with a sacrifice fly to right, Bauers crossing the plate, and Pratt immediately followed with a 409-foot home run to left center to make it 2-0. Robert Gasser held Colorado quiet through the first three innings, and when the Rockies finally answered in the fourth — Hunter Goodman singled to left, scoring Karros and Carrigg to tie it at 2-2 — that two-run swing was the most dangerous moment of the night. Milwaukee's home win probability dropped from 67% to 55% on that play, the biggest single swing of the game. It looked, briefly, like Colorado had found something. They hadn't. Pratt singled to right in the same inning to score Bauers and push Milwaukee back ahead, 3-2, and that was the last time the Rockies were within a run.
The sixth inning is where this game was buried. Lara doubled to left, scoring Contreras and Bauers to make it 5-2. Pratt added a sacrifice fly to push it to 6-2. Then Colorado catcher Fulford committed a pickoff error that allowed a run to score and Hamilton to steal third, extending the lead to 7-2. The story of the night was Milwaukee manufacturing runs in bunches — not just hitting, but forcing errors and taking extra bases at every opportunity. Gasser did his part on the mound: 6.0 innings, 5 hits, 2 earned runs, zero walks, 4 strikeouts. Ryan Feltner couldn't survive the fifth for Colorado, allowing 9 hits and 5 earned runs in 5.0 innings.
Colorado's ninth-inning rally — McCarthy singling to center to score two, Karros singling to score another, making it 8-5 — was too little, too late, and it appears to have been more a product of Milwaukee's late relievers losing focus than any genuine Colorado resurgence. Jake Bauers crossed the plate three times without recording a hit in the box score's top performers, which looks like the kind of quiet, table-setting performance that gets overlooked but matters enormously. Pratt and Lara were the headliners, but Bauers being on base repeatedly was the engine. Milwaukee wins convincingly, and on this night, it wasn't particularly close.