Harrison Fans 10, Brewers Cruise Past Pirates 4-2

Kyle Harrison was untouchable — 5.0 innings, 1 hit, 0 earned runs, and 10 strikeouts — as Milwaukee handled Pittsburgh 4-2 on Wednesday night. The Brewers did their damage early and never looked back, turning a dominant pitching performance into a comfortable win.

The story of the night was Harrison's command of the strike zone. One hit allowed over five innings with double-digit strikeouts is the kind of line that makes opposing hitters look overmatched, and that's exactly what happened. Paul Skenes, for his part, ran into trouble — 5.0 innings, 3 earned runs, and 4 walks is a rough night for Pittsburgh's ace, and the walk total looks like the real culprit given how the fourth inning unfolded.

That fourth inning was where the game was decided. Yelich doubled to right, scoring Mitchell and moving Contreras to third — a play that swung Milwaukee's win probability from 69% to 80%, a 12-point jump that tells you everything about how quickly the Brewers seized control. Vaughn then singled to right, scoring both Contreras and Yelich to push the lead to 3-0. Three runs, two hits, and Pittsburgh was already chasing. Contreras added an exclamation point in the sixth, launching a 400-foot homer to left center to make it 4-0. At that point, the game appeared to be over as a competitive contest.

Pittsburgh's only real answer came in the seventh, when Endy Rodríguez hit a 378-foot shot to left center that scored Reynolds and made it 4-2. Rodríguez finished 1-for-3 with the homer, 2 RBI, and a run scored — the lone bright spot in an otherwise quiet night for the Pirates offense. Yelich went 2-for-4 with an RBI and a run for Milwaukee, and Contreras crossed the plate twice to go along with his home run. The Pittsburgh bullpen — Lake Bachar throwing 2.0 innings and Evan Sisk adding a clean final frame — kept the game from getting uglier, but the deficit was never seriously threatened. This one belonged to Milwaukee from the fourth inning on.