A’s overpowered by Brewers in 11-3 loss

A’s drop the first of three against Milwaukee

The Milwaukee Brewers proved every reason why they’re one of the leagues best offenses and brightest young teams in Fridays 11-3 win over the A’s. Fourteen hits — six of them for extra bases — including seven combined RBIs from Rhys Hoskins and Gary Sanchez was plenty enough as the National League Central leaders flexed their guns tonight.

Lawrence Butler got tonight’s scoring starting when he roped the second pitch thrown by Aaron Civale over the center field fence.

Unfortunately for the green and gold the fun never really persisted after. The A’s would force 30+ pitches out of Civale in the first while loading the bases but that’d be the closest they came to scoring for quite some time. The Brewers, meanwhile, responded promptly.

Back-to-back home runs — a three run shot and a solo blast — surrendered by Sears in the second gave the Brew Crew a 4-1 lead. Hoskins’ three-runner snapped an 0-21 hitless streak at the dish.

The Brewers would add a fifth run in the inning off an ugly Miguel Andujar error in left. A promising first inning for the A’s was immediately clouded by a laborious offensive Brewers rally and for JP Sears, it wasn’t over. Two doubles and a single led to two more Milwaukee runs in the fourth and Sears wouldn’t finish the inning. His final line: 3.2 IP, nine hits, seven runs and five earned.

The A’s got both of those runs back in the bottom of the fourth thanks to a Darell Hernaiz bases-loaded walk and Butler RBI groundout but that’d be the rest of their offense for the rest of the game.

Ross Stripling gave 4.1 frames of impressive scoreless work after Sears while allowing just two hits and striking out four to keep the A’s at bay but Milwaukee poured it on in the ninth. Four runs on four hits surrendered by Dany Jimenez grew the Brewers lead to 11-3 — tonight’s final. The A’s tallied just one hit and one baserunner over the last five innings of play.

Tomorrow is a new day as Joe Boyle takes the rock against Colin Rea of the Brewers. First pitch is 1:07 PM PDT.