MILWAUKEE – Sean Newcomb looked like a strong All-Star candidate a few weeks ago. Now the Braves left-hander looks like a young pitcher who could use a rest. Or something.
Newcomb gave up five runs and didn’t make it out of the fourth inning Sunday in a 10-3 loss to the Brewers at Miller Park, his second poor start on a 10-game trip that saw the Braves drop five of the last six.
They finished 5-5 with a sweep at St. Louis followed by series losses against the Yankees and Brewers, who took three of four, and the Braves also saw center fielder Ender Inciarte pulled in the fifth inning Sunday by manager Brian Snitker for lack of hustle.
All five runs against Newcomb came in the third inning, two days after Mike Foltynewicz gave up five runs in the third inning of a 5-4 loss to the surging Brewers, who out-homered the Braves 7-0 in the series. The Braves trailed 10-1 before scoring twice in the ninth inning.
It was the first time Atlanta failed to hit a homer in a series at Milwaukee.
The Brewers got a three-run homer from Hernan Perez in Newcomb’s disastrous third inning and a pair of home runs from Jesus Aguilar, who hit one off Sam Freeman with bases empty in the seventh inning and added a three-run shot off rookie Evan Phillips in the eighth. Phillips, in his second major league appearance, also gave up a pinch-hit homer to Eric Thames in the four-run eighth inning.
As if ending the 10-game trip with a series loss and one-sided defeat weren’t bad enough, Inciarte was replaced in the middle of the fifth inning after not running out of the batter’s box on a pop-up that was dropped by shortstop Tyler Saladino in that inning.
“I’ve talked to him about it before,” Snitker said. “When you don’t run, you hurt the team, then you’ve got to come out of the game. We’re playing for first place, we’ve got to get after it. Can’t let those kind of opportunities get away.”
Inciarte reached first base on the play but would’ve made it to second if he’d run hard after hitting the ball.
Ozzie Albies followed with a single that could’ve given the Braves a run.
Inciarte was also thrown out trying to advance on Albies' fly-out to center in the third inning, but Snitker said he pulled Inciarte, “Mainly because he didn’t run (on the dropped pop-up) and it cost us a run. You’ve got to run there, you’ve got to be on second base there. We have a base hit, we score another run in a tough ballgame.”
Inciarte said, “He did what he had to do. He’s got to set an example and start somewhere, and if I’ve got to be the guy pulled out of the game to show what we’ve got to do, I’m Ok with it.”
The game was lost, for all intents and purposes, in the bottom of the third when the Brewers blitzed Newcomb for five runs on four hits, a walk and a sacrifice fly, with Perez’s homer capping the scoring.
Newcomb was charged with five hits and four walks with three strikeouts in 3 2/3 innings, and the Braves lost the fourth consecutive game he’s started after winning eight of his previous 10 starts.
“It was just like he didn’t have feel for pretty much anything,” Snitker said. “He was scattering the fastball all over the place and just off.”
Newcomb pitched twice on the trip and had his two shortest and worst performances of the season including a career-low 2 2/3 innings against the Yankees. He gave up five runs in each game and totaled 6 1/3 innings in the two outings while allowing eight hits, 10 earned runs, three homers and nine walks with five strikeouts.
“It was probably feel, just kind of not having my best stuff, not getting ahead of hitters and attacking them the way I should be,” Newcomb said. “Got to kind of take a step back and re-assess it, just kind of get back to being aggressive and attacking hitters.”
Newcomb was 7-1 with a 2.49 ERA and .201 opponents’ average in his first 12 starts through June 5 and had 68 strikeouts, 33 walks and three homers allowed in 68 2/3 innings in that impressive span. In six starts since then, he’s 1-3 with a 5.58 ERA and .252 opponents’ average and has 27 strikeouts, 16 walks and seven homers allowed in 27 innings.
His strikeout rate has remained the same while the hits and walks are up and the home-run rate has soared.
Veteran Anibal Sanchez didn’t just have the only two “quality” starts for the Braves in the last seven games of the trip, he had the only two that weren’t outright bad in that stretch. Every other starter in that stretch gave up at least five runs except Max Fried, who allowed four runs in three innings before exiting with a finger blister and going on the disabled list the next day.
The Braves’ only two wins in the last seven games of the trip were games started by Sanchez.
Two of the Brewers’ three wins in the four-game series were fueled by five-run third innings against Foltynewicz on Friday and Newcomb on Sunday. But Foltynewicz had breezed through the first two innings and was able to settle back in and work six innings, taking some pressure off a weary bullpen.
Newcomb ran into trouble in the second inning, issuing consecutive one-out walks and throwing a wild pitch to put both runners in scoring position before escaping with a pair of strikeouts. He wasn’t as fortunate in the third after allowing three consecutive singles and a walk to the first four batters in the inning.
One Kurt Suzuki passed ball and a sacrifice fly later, Perez torched a 1-0 change-up, driving it over the center-field fence.
Newcomb also issued a walk with one out in the fourth and was replaced one out later with his pitch count at 82, after recording just 11 outs and throwing 44 strikes.
