Brandon Woodruff's gem, Christian Yelich's timely homer lead Brewers to shutout win over Cubs

That had to feel good for the Milwaukee Brewers, and for myriad of reasons.

The Brewers offense had been mired in a funk for the first 16 innings of its series with the Chicago Cubs, not to mention the unit’s struggles over a much longer stretch of time. Christian Yelich himself was caught in a prolonged period of his power being sapped.

Both busted out of both in a decisive seventh inning Saturday night.

Yelich blasted a three-run homer as part of a late-game barrage against the Cubs bullpen that led the Brewers to a 7-0 win at American Family Field.

"Look, it’s been a struggle scoring runs," Brewers manager Craig Counsell said. "Four-run lead, those have been tough to come by for us. We’ve been playing so many close games, so many games where a reliever comes in and has no margin for error. It just creates some breathing room."

Box score: Brewers 7, Cubs 0

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It was part of a four-hit day for Yelich but marked just his second home run in his last 185 plate appearances and third extra-base hit of any kind in his last 75.

"He hit the ball really hard today, which is what we’ve seen when he’s doing good, just a lot of hard contact and having good at-bats," Counsell said. "Obviously these guys in the middle, they want guys on base and they want their shot at it. Christian getting on base helps them out."

The Brewers had failed to score through six innings against Chicago lefty Drew Smyly, a trend of late facing Cubs starting pitching. Over the last four games, including Smyly's outing, against the Cubs, Milwaukee has scored just three runs in 23 innings against the combination of Smyly, Marcus Stroman and Justin Steele.

Friday night was quiet offensively for the Brewers, who had just two runs on solo homers in the series by the time Smyly exited after six innings. The offense changed things up briefly and, as a result, put a rally in motion in the seventh.

Following singles by Victor Caratini and Kolten Wong to lead off the inning against reliever Rowan Wick, Jace Peterson laid down a bunt up the third base line. Cubs third baseman Christopher Morel fielded and threw wide of first, sending the ball up the right field line to score Caratini from second.

After fouling off five pitches from Wick, Yelich finally got a mistake – a hanging curve – and punished it with a home run to right to put the Brewers up, 4-0. It was Yelich’s 10th homer of the season.

"Just bear down and do a little bit better job situationally has kind of been our focus," Yelich said. "We all know we need to do better. It was just bear down and stay within the zone and try to put a good swing on something. I think he’s got really good stuff, so it’s a tough at-bat.

"Jace was able to make it a little easier by getting that bunt down and everything that ensued after that. Just trying to add on to the lead and I ended up catching one that was hanging a little bit and it got out.”

Kolten Wong led off the bottom of the eighth with a solo shot to right and Willy Adames made it 7-0 with his 26th long ball of the season, this one of the two-run variety.

While Yelich and the rest of the offense had a breakout from their norm of late, Brandon Woodruff came out of the gates doing what he typically does: firing gas.

"Woody pitched great," Counsell said. "I think that’s number one."

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Woodruff struck out seven Cubs the first time through the order en route to going six scoreless innings with 10 strikeouts. He worked around four hits, including three doubles, and left a runner in scoring position each of his final three innings of work.

“I think after I got that first strikeout there after the leadoff double (in the first inning," Woodruff said. "That was a good pitch to [Nick] Madrigal, got a double and I just told myself, 'Keep making pitches.’ Once I got through that first inning, coming into the second, I could kind of tell that location was good early on. I had a pretty good bite to the curveball and I was able to land that early in the counts."

After the Cubs ran up Woodruff's pitch count early with an abundance of foul balls and a 36-pitch first inning on Sunday at Wrigley, Woodruff fine-tuned his mechanics during the week to place an emphasis on fastball location. The result was an almost unhittable four-seamer that generated eight swings and misses and another eight called strikes on 38 total thrown.

"Woody has the ultimate belief in the fastball," Counsell said. "I thought some of his off-speed pitches were really good but I thought his fastball was commanded exceptionally well tonight. He threw it to all parts of the strike zone. Such a good fastball going to all parts of the strike zone and not just one place is really tough for hitters."

The final out of Woodruff’s start involved a fortuitous bounce off his calf on a smashed grounder off the bat of Franmil Reyes. The ball ricocheted off Woodruff and right to first baseman Rowdy Tellez, who won a footrace to the bag to strand a runner at second.

Woodruff continues to look like the version of himself the Brewers have come to expect since returning from ankle and finger injuries that required him to miss a month. Since returning on June 28, Woodruff is 5-0 with a 2.35 earned run average and Milwaukee is 8-3 in his 11 starts.

The Brewers have needed each of those victories. In games not started by Woodruff since his return from the injured list, they are 12 games under .500 at 26-38.

Although it didn't make up any ground in either the wild card or division standings as both San Diego and St. Louis won one-run decisions Saturday, Milwaukee had the sound of a team hopeful it was on the cusp of turning the page.

"The line between winning and losing a game in the big leagues is really thin," Yelich said. "Sometimes it’s just a couple of plays, and there’s a lapse in focus or things don’t go your way or you run into tough luck and it’s going to be hard for you. We’ve definitely had our fair share of tough losses, but we’re still not out of anything. I think if we play well, we’ll be all right. It’s just getting out here and doing that.”

Thirty-seven games remain for the Brewers to make their move.

"Every game from here on out is important," Woodruff said. "We know we need to win. We know we’re gonna have to play good baseball going into September and October if we want to have a chance to make the playoffs. You never know, maybe tonight is the start of something pretty cool."

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This article originally appeared on Milwaukee Journal Sentinel: Woodruff's gem, Yelich's timely homer propel Brewers past Cubs