In Game 81, Woodruff fans 8, walks ... none

PITTSBURGH -- Brandon Woodruff and the Brewers reached the halfway point on a high.

Woodruff dazzled for the second straight start off the injured list in a 2-0 win over the Pirates at PNC Park on Sunday, dealing six scoreless innings before Brad Boxberger?, Devin Williams and Josh Hader closed out a victory that pushed the Brewers to a National League Central-best 46-35 with 81 regular-season games down and 81 to go.

“We’re playing good, so we’re excited to get into this second-half stretch because that’s usually when we really turn it on,” Woodruff said.

Omar Narváez hit a two-run shot off Zach Thompson in the fifth inning for his first home run in nearly two months, and the pitchers did the rest. Woodruff induced a season-high 19 swings and misses in his 94-pitch outing and scattered six hits with no walks and eight strikeouts.

In two starts since returning from an IL stint for a sprained ankle and a circulation issue in his right hand, Woodruff has held the Rays and Pirates to one earned run on eight hits with no walks and 18 strikeouts. That’s a promising sign of things to come for the two-time All-Star.

“It sucks going on [the IL], but you have to take it for what it is because you can’t really do anything about it once you’re on it,” Woodruff said. “Just use it as a mental reset, a physical reset -- a total reset, really. Then you try to come back to being the kind of pitcher you know you are. I think that’s what I’ve done.”

Woodruff wasn’t feeling quite himself before his injury. After allowing 14 earned runs in three Cactus League starts, he began the regular season with a 5.97 ERA in his first six outings. He was just getting on track when he sprained the ankle in his drive leg during a May 27 start at St. Louis and landed on the IL.

“I think he’s kind of, like, back on track,” Brewers pitching coach Chris Hook said. “He was just a little off. Spring Training wasn’t quite where he needed to be. He’s taken the four weeks there and cleaned up himself and he’s ready to go, ready to be more like he was in the first half of last year.”

It’s good timing for the Brewers, who have seen four starting pitchers land on the IL already this season, most recently ?Adrian Houser? with a right elbow injury. But the Brewers got a promising diagnosis on Houser on Friday, the same day Freddy Peralta threw off a mound in Arizona in a session that went “really, really well,” according to Hook. The next day, ?Aaron Ashby? came off the IL to start against the Pirates.

So, the Brewers reached the mathematical midpoint in a relatively good place in terms of pitching health, with Woodruff leading the way.

“His sinker is better than it was,” manager Craig Counsell said. “His changeup has been really, really good also, and you need the changeup against this type of lineup. I thought he just pitched really well. He made pitches. They had a couple of singles, but he just made pitches when they had some small rallies.”

The Brewers’ A-list relievers were just as tough. Boxberger delivered his eighth straight scoreless appearance. Williams delivered his 21st consecutive scoreless appearance and his Major League-leading 21st hold. And Hader converted his Major League-leading 25th save, though it was a nailbiter.

Hader surrendered a one-out double before Diego Castillo reached on a wild pitch on strike three. Narváez thought the ball had hit the batter, but it hit home plate umpire Nate Tomlinson instead. The Pirates went on to load the bases before Hader retired the dangerous Bryan Reynolds to end the game.

“We saw elite pitching,” Pirates manager Derek Shelton said. “You saw a guy in the seventh who’s led the league in saves, a guy in the eighth who was Rookie of the Year and a guy in the ninth who's maybe the best closer in baseball. So I think it was a situation where they execute pitches and we couldn't get a ball to fall.”

With that, half the Brewers’ season was in the books.

At that moment, they ranked second among NL clubs in home runs (113) and fourth in wOBA (.320) as an offense, and third in strikeout rate (24.9) and fourth in ERA (3.76) as a pitching staff.

“I think we’ve been playing well as a group the last couple weeks, which means a lot of guys are contributing to the cause,” Counsell said. “We’ve got another stretch here before the All-Star break, [12 games], so we just have to keep going hard until we get a little break.”