The Milwaukee Brewers had runners on second and third with no outs within the fifth inning Sunday towards the Chicago White Sox.
Trailing by two runs, Sox starter Dylan Cease was targeted on retaining his crew within the sport.
He acquired Brice Turang to come out to shortstop Elvis Andrus and Tyrone Taylor to come out to first baseman Andrew Vaughn. After deliberately strolling Christian Yelich to load the bases, Cease struck out William Contreras.
“It seemed like they were starting to sit soft, so we mixed in some more heaters and fortunately it worked out,” Cease mentioned.
Cease was sharp, however the sport acquired away from the Sox late in a 7-3 loss in entrance of 24,495 at Guaranteed Rate Field.
The Brewers scored 5 runs within the last two innings towards the Sox bullpen on the way in which to sweeping the three-game sequence. All of the offense for the Sox got here throughout a three-run ninth.
It’s the primary time the Brewers swept the Sox in Chicago in a sequence of at the very least three video games since April 7-10, 1986, at previous Comiskey Park.
Cease allowed two runs on 5 hits with seven strikeouts and two walks (one intentional) in a season-high seven innings.
“The first couple of innings I was sort of feeling my way through it,” Cease mentioned. “Then once I started to get a little bit more aggressive and just driving it, it seemed to get me in a good rhythm.”
It was his longest outing since a complete-game, one-hit shutout on Sept. 3, 2022, towards the Minnesota Twins at Guaranteed Rate Field.
Manager Pedro Grifol mentioned Cease was “on top of his game” Sunday. The fifth served as the proper instance.
“He commanded the baseball and he used his fastball,” Grifol mentioned. “When we ended up strolling Yelich, he threw three fastballs to Contreras. He usually mixes in a few sliders someplace, particularly with any person we’ve been attacking with sliders. He sort of flipped the script a little bit bit right this moment. He used his fastball a ton and commanded it.
“If he can do that, we’ll see some consistency like this. Because it’s an above-average fastball. It becomes probably plus-plus when he starts commanding it and his other stuff becomes even better.”
The runner-up in American League Cy Young Award voting in 2022, Cease is 5-6 with a 4.32 ERA in 25 begins this season.
“That’s just the nature of the beast sometimes,” Cease mentioned. “All it takes is getting out of sync a little bit bit and with out realizing it, you reinforce unhealthy habits after which it may be tough to make these changes. Because on the identical time you’re nonetheless having to compete and get guys out on the major-league degree.
“A season like this for me has been a lot of grinding and sort of feeling like I’ve put Band-Aids on things. But I’m at a point now where I feel like I’ve learned a lot from it and I’m expecting to finish pretty strong.”
Cease described 2022 as “pretty effortless.”
“I was in that flow state most of my starts,” he mentioned. “This yr it’s been extra working by means of issues and figuring issues out.
“But that’s a part of the game. You still have to show up and perform. There’s still seven starts, something like that (left this season). I’m looking forward to it.”
Cease mentioned there have been loads of takeaways alongside the way in which.
“You learn a lot of what works and what doesn’t work and what cues work and what thoughts work and all kinds of different stuff,” he mentioned. “At the tip of the day, probably the most superb state to be in is one the place there’s not a number of considering and it’s simply muscle reminiscence. A yr like this for me, I’m gaining all that info.
“For the end of this season and next season, I’ll now know if I’m yanking or this goes out of line, this could be one of three issues I had (in 2023). So it just builds on it.”
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Source: www.bostonherald.com