It's about time. The Milwaukee Brewers finally got themselves back in the win column on Friday night, slugging their way past the Mets by a score of 5-1 and snapping their five game losing streak.
Things were looking precarious early as Brewers starter Eric Lauer gave a leadoff triple to Brandon Nimmo, who came in to score on a Francisco Lindor groundout. After a Willy Adames throwing error, the Mets ended up with the bases loaded against Lauer, who didn't give up any more runs, but threw 39 pitches in a stressful first inning.
But that would be all the Mets would get and their lead didn't last long. Kolten Wong slugged his 7th leadoff home run of the season to tie the game at 1 in the bottom of the 1st.
Eric Lauer ended up settling in and his offense provided some more run support in the 3rd inning. Willy Adames, recently returned from the IL, hit a two run homer to right-center to give the Brewers a 3-1 lead and Christian Yelich followed two pitches later, hitting a moonshot off the scoreboard for a 4-1 lead on back-to-back jacks.
Those homers were the first for both Adames and Yelich since mid-August.
Yelich followed up that home run in the fifth inning with a hustle triple to the left field corner, giving him his first multi-hit game in a couple of weeks. He scored shortly after on a sac fly by Avisail Garcia to give the Brewers a 5-1 lead.
In a game where the Brewers were shallow in their bullpen, Eric Lauer did everything the Brewers needed, making it through 6.2 IP, allowing just three hits, one run, and striking out a career high nine batters.
The St. Louis Cardinals won both of their games against the Cubs in a doubleheader, but the Brewers victory snaps their five game losing streak and brings the magic number to clinch the NL Central down to 2. They can clinch Saturday with a win and a Cardinals loss.