MILWAUKEE (AP) — Eric Haase and Christian Yelich hit solo home runs to back a strong start by Chad Patrick and the Milwaukee Brewers beat the Kansas City Royals 5-0 on Tuesday night for their first win of the season.
Patrick gave the Brewers something they hadn’t had thus far — three scoreless innings to begin the game. Milwaukee surrendered 24 runs in the first three innings of its first four games.
Haase homered from the ninth spot in the order to put the Brewers up 1-0 in the third. Brice Turang and Jackson Chourio followed with singles and Turang scored on a force-out at second on Yelich’s grounder to make it 2-0.
Patrick fell an out short of qualifying for the win in his first career start, giving up three hits and three walks with five strikeouts in 4 2/3 innings.
Rhys Hoskins had an RBI single in a two-run sixth to up the lead to 4-0, and Yelich hit his first home run to cap the scoring in the eighth.
Jared Koenig pitched an inning, Abner Uribe (1-0) got four outs to get the win, Joel Payamps pitched the eighth and Trevor Megill got the last three outs.
Michael Lorenzen (0-1) allowed four runs — three earned — in 5 1/3 innings. He struck out seven.
Key moment
Koenig entered with two outs and two on in the top of the fifth inning. He retired Michael Massey on a grounder to first to preserve a 2-0 lead.
Key stat
The Brewers began the day with an ERA of 12.27 through four games and that includes two scoreless innings from first baseman Jake Bauers. The staff tied the record set by the 1954 Cardinals for the most runs allowed through four games with 47.
Up next
Cole Ragans (0-0) makes his second start for Kansas City in Wednesday’s series finale. Freddy Peralta (0—1) starts for the second time for Milwaukee.
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AP MLB: https://apnews.com/hub/mlb
