A long time coming: Timely offense, strong pitching leads Brewers to win at Fenway Park

BOSTON - The Milwaukee Brewers made their return to Fenway Park a happy one.

Playing the Red Sox at the fabled ballpark for the first time since April of 2014, the Brewers rode some key offense from leadoff man Christian Yelich and a strong pitching performance from Brandon Woodruff and the bullpen to a 4-1 victory on Friday night.

Yelich doubled and scored the game's first run in the sixth, then drove in the go-ahead run an inning later with a clutch two-out single to the opposite field.

Woodruff, meanwhile, set a new season high with a 6⅓-inning start and Brad Boxberger, Devin Williams and Josh Hader shut the game down the rest of the way.

Box score: Brewers 4, Red Sox 1

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The victory improved Milwaukee's record in interleague play this season to 10-3.

The starting pitching situations couldn't have been more disparate coming in – the Red Sox going with a tandem of opener Austin Davis followed by Brayan Bello and the Brewers with one of their horses in Woodruff.

For the first five innings, both approaches worked well.

Davis, a lefty, allowed an infield single and a walk with four strikeouts in 2⅓ innings, then the right-handed Bello picked up right where his Davis left off.

He faced his first spot of trouble after issuing consecutive one-out walks in the fifth but quickly escaped after getting Tyrone Taylor to ground into a 6-4-3 double play.

The Brewers finally got to Bello in the sixth with a Yelich double, Willy Adames infield single and Andrew McCutchen infield squibber making it 1-0.

"The pitching was really good the first five innings of the game," manager Craig Counsell said . "We didn't hit a ball hard for five innings until Yeli led off the sixth with the double."

Consecutive two-out doubles by Christian Vázquez and Alex Verdugo on back-to-back 0-2 counts tied it in the bottom of the frame and represented the first two hits against Woodruff since a Vázquez single two batters in.

"They put some at-bats together and made it pretty tough and got some hits when they needed to," Woodruff said. "But for the most part I was able to get ahead and get some quick outs through the middle innings and into the later innings."

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The Brewers pushed another run across in the seventh courtesy a two-out triple by Taylor and an opposite-field RBI single by Yelich on the first pitch thrown by Ryan Brasier.

"He's swinging it good," Counsell said of Yelich. "That was an important run, obviously. They put one together against Woody with some two-out stuff, so to get the lead right back was big there."

Woodruff (9-3) recorded the first out in the bottom half before Franchy Cordero reached out and poked a double to left. A walk to Bobby Dalbec ended Woodruff's night, with Boxberger coming on to strike out Jackie Bradley Jr. and then generating a weak popout to Adames at shortstop.

Woodruff allowed four hits and the run with two walks to go along with nine strikeouts over 101 pitches. He also generated a game-high 19 swings and misses.

"He got in a groove there," Counsell said. "Threw a ton of strikes. Quality strikes, getting swing and miss. It was a really good performance. And I thought Brad Boxberger did a heck of a job, too.

"He comes into a tough situation and made some good pitches when he fell behind in the count to Bradley."

Williams worked his way out of a two-on, one-out jam in the eighth then in the ninth Taylor drove in a run with a sacrifice fly and two more came home on a single to left by Adames in an 0-2 count.

Given that extra breathing room, Hader closed the door with his 29th save to the cheers of a vociferous group of Brewers fans.

"I guess it's because we don't come here that often," surmised Woodruff. "Leaving the hotel today, there was a ton of Brewer fans walking the streets coming in. Walking out to warm up, they were great. There's really nowhere to hide here in the bullpen, so they're right on top of us.

"I could definitely hear them. When you're on the road and you get the support like that, it means a lot to us. And when you come into a place like this, it's kind of similar to that Wrigley feel. Anytime you can have Brewer fans cheering like that, it's pretty cool."

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This article originally appeared on Milwaukee Journal Sentinel: Brewers get timely offense, strong pitching in win over Red Sox, 4-1