Hoskins, Brewers' bats propel past A's
OAKLAND -- The Brewers got back on track Friday night, getting five consecutive hits to start the second inning, eventually scoring five in the frame and going on to an 11-3 win over the A¡¯s at the Coliseum.
Rhys Hoskins and Joey Ortiz hit back-to-back home runs to open the scoring for Milwaukee.
The win snapped a two-game losing streak and moved the Brewers back to 20 games over .500 and 10 games ahead of St. Louis in the National League Central.
Every starter in the lineup collected a hit.
Starter Aaron Civale went four innings and didn¡¯t look as sharp as he had in his previous two outings. He allowed three runs on four hits, walked four and struck out three. Bryan Hudson picked up the win with two perfect innings.
¡°Credit our guys,¡± Brewers manager Pat Murphy said. ¡°We were ready to hit. Hoskins with the big blow and everybody kind of piled on after that. It was great.¡±
The A¡¯s got a leadoff home run from Lawrence Butler in the bottom of the first. But then the Brewers batted all nine in the second. Willy Adames and Gary S¨¢nchez led off with singles, followed by Hoskins' three-run home run to left. Ortiz hit the next pitch from J.P. Sears to deep center. Andruw Monasterio then singled. One out later, Jackson Chourio singled to left and Miguel Andujar kicked the ball, allowing Monasterio to score the fifth run of the inning.
¡°The pitch was a low slider,¡± Hoskins said. ¡°Just a little bit too much in the zone with two strikes. I had seen a couple of them previously, so I had some feel for the shape.
¡°It¡¯s nice to jump on a team on the road early. It kind of puts us ahead of the eight ball a little bit, gives some confidence to the pitcher to go out there and fill up the zone. Aaron had a tough job in that one inning, but he gave us a couple of innings and turned it over to the bullpen.¡±
"If you think of [Hoskins'] at-bats lately, he hit three balls over 100 miles an hour right at the third baseman in St. Louis," Murphy said. "Then he comes back the next day and hits another hardball at the backhand of the shortstop and gets thrown out. So he¡¯s hitting the ball hard. He just couldn¡¯t come up with anything.
¡°To see him swing in batting practice today was great and to see him hit with confidence might really ignite us.¡±
Back-to-back doubles by Sal Frelick and Chourio in the fourth got Milwaukee another run. Blake Perkins then beat out an infield single and when second baseman Zack Gelof lost the ball out of his glove, Chourio scored.
S¨¢nchez hit a bases-loaded triple in the ninth and later scored on a sacrifice fly off Hoskins.
¡°We love it,¡± Hoskins said of S¨¢nchez's third career triple. ¡°We were definitely on him for it.¡±
The only drama late in the game was whether William Contreras would get a hit. He was the kid outside the candy store until the ninth when he lined a base hit off the glove of Oakland's third baseman Darell Hernaiz.
Joe Ross, who went to Oakland¡¯s Bishop O¡¯Dowd High School, pitched a scoreless ninth for the Brewers.