In 'tough three days,' Crew falls to ruthless Braves

ATLANTA -- Carlos Santana made his presence felt with the Brewers for the first time, but it wasn’t nearly enough against a Braves team that hits and hits and hits.

The Braves socked four more home runs and erased a trio of Milwaukee leads to complete an emphatic sweep of the Brewers, who fell, 8-6, in Sunday’s series finale at Truist Park and can only hope they see Atlanta once more by year’s end.

If the teams do meet again, it would mean a postseason matchup.

“That’s the goal. You want to earn the right to play these guys again,” said Brewers left fielder Christian Yelich, who stayed hot with a home run, two runs scored and two RBIs to cap a lively series for the Brewers’ offense. “They’re most likely a playoff team, almost guaranteed to be a playoff team. If we run into them again, if we earn the right to make the playoffs, anything can happen in a playoff series.

“I think if we end up playing [the Braves] again, it means our season has gone pretty good."

First, of course, the Brewers have to get there. By dropping all three games despite scoring seven, five and six runs, the Brewers dropped half a game behind the Reds in the National League Central while Cincinnati tangled with the Dodgers out west. Also suddenly in play are the Cubs, whose eight-game winning streak came to an end on Sunday. Chicago lurks within 3 1/2 games of the Brewers.

Five times during Milwaukee’s steamy series at Truist Park, they took a lead. Five times, the Braves erased it in the bottom of the very same inning, including three times on Sunday: first with Austin Riley’s go-ahead, two-run home run off Colin Rea in the first inning, then with Matt Olson’s go-ahead, three-run homer after Rea thought he had Riley struck out to end the third, then once again in the sixth when Marcell Ozuna hit a tying solo shot off Hoby Milner.

Atlanta took the lead for good in the eighth against Joel Payamps, the Brewers’ best reliever not named Devin Williams. Again, it was a homer from Olson, whose no-doubt, two-run shot to right-center field gave him three homers and eight RBIs for the series.

This weekend, the Braves scored 29 runs and came within two hitters -- catcher Sean Murphy and left fielder Eddie Rosario in Sunday’s finale -- of having every starter have a hit in every game of the series.

“Look, they swung the bats as well as you can swing it -- as well as I’ve seen in a three-game series,” Brewers manager Craig Counsell said. “We did a decent job scoring runs this series, for sure. They just have a lot of hitters locked in. Which hitter you choose to go after, it’s tough because it’s up and down the lineup.”

Take the first inning, when Rea went after Riley while simultaneously dealing with NL stolen base leader Ronald Acu?a Jr. on first base. Riley homered, giving the Braves 109 first-inning runs this season, more than any other team in any inning.

In the third, Rea worked carefully against Riley and thought he had him struck out with a full-count sinker placed perfectly low and away. It was called Ball 4. Olson followed with a three-run homer.

“Top to bottom, everyone in their lineup can do damage,” said Rea. “For me, specifically, I’ve gotten hurt on the home run ball this year in numerous games and this is a team where you can’t make those mistakes. They weren’t even bad pitches today, really. [Braves hitters] were just on pitches.”

The Braves’ power display negated what was an encouraging day for the Brewers’ offense, which had scored more than four runs only once in the first 12 games following the All-Star break. Against Atlanta, the Brewers scored seven runs on Friday, five on Saturday (though four of them scored late, after the game was out of hand) and six more on Sunday. Along with Yelich's homer, Santana lined a 104.6 mph go-ahead home run for his first Brewers hit and William Contreras stayed hot with a two-run double in Milwaukee’s go-ahead sixth. Contreras had two hits in each game of the series, including three doubles and a homer.

That’s what the Brewers have been looking for. After their offensive slump coming out of the All-Star break, they scored five runs or more all three days in Atlanta.

Every time, the Braves erased those efforts.

“If we can keep doing that -- we’re not going to score six or seven every game, but if you can find ways to tack on runs, I think for the rest of the year we’ll be alright in the long run,” Yelich said. “Just a tough three days.”