Willy Adames hit a three-run home run, his fourth in four games, and the Milwaukee Brewers took advantage of a strong start to beat the Cincinnati Reds 8-3 on Friday night, earning their fourth consecutive win.
Brice Turang also homered, and Aaron Civale (3-8) pitched 6 1/3 innings, allowing two runs to get his first win in exactly four months. Civale, who joined the Brewers from Tampa Bay on July 3, had been winless in his previous 19 starts.
“I think the story was Civale,” said Brewers manager Pat Murphy. “He was really good. He threw the ball at the bottom of the zone tonight when he needed to. He was all over the strike zone.”
For the second game in a row, the Brewers built an 8-0 lead, scoring three runs in each of the first two innings and adding two more in the third. They used the same strategy on Thursday in a 16-7 win over the Braves, completing a three-game sweep.
“We were taking good at-bats before, but we were just missing that little big hit to click,” Adames said. “In Atlanta, we did it.
After that, we just carried on the momentum and brought it here. Hopefully, we can continue to do that because it’s so much fun.”
Adames began the scoring with a 1-2 pitch from Carson Spiers (4-4), sending the ball into the second deck in right field. The 391-foot home run was his 21st of the season, adding to his two homers on Tuesday and one on Thursday.
“Adames did what he should have done on that 1-2 pitch,” Spiers said. “That’s really the one that haunted me. I should have probably expanded it a little bit more, being 1-2, get it up and out of the zone, where it’s still a competitive pitch, but where he can swing and miss, rather than do what he did on that pitch.”
This was Adames’ ninth three-run homer of the season, setting a franchise record for a single season in that category.
Adames almost hit another home run in the fifth, but left fielder Spencer Steer caught his fly ball near the wall.
