The brewers fail to close the door to the Cubs because they can not beat the Pirates

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"They are not going to give you anything, there is no doubt," said manager Craig Counsell, whose series of seven consecutive wins ended with a brutal stoppage.

"We were calm with the bats. We really started well this weekend. Just a little calm with the bats the last two days.

The problem for brewers is that it has been going on for over two days. They dropped to 5-11 against the Pirates, who are 63-69 against all the other clubs in the major league. In those 11 losses, the Brewers totaled 23 points, an average of 2.09 per game.

The only good news of the day was the Cubs' 2-1 defeat at home against the Cincinnati Reds, who will then come to Miller Park. This kept the Brewers' status quo at two and a half games, three in the losses column. But the status quo is not a good thing with the two-week season.

Of their remaining 12 games, three will be played next weekend in Pittsburgh, where Trevor Williams will be waiting for them again. The hottest pitcher in the majors since the break from the stars (1.19 ERA), Williams never let the Brewers take the air on Sunday, smothering them on two hits in six innings with seven strikeouts.

In two starts against the Brewers this season, Williams dropped them for 13 innings, allowing three hits and eliminating 14 batters. It's not good for the Friday or Saturday game at PNC Park. The loser in those first two games was Jhoulys Chacín, who will likely face Williams one more time.

Williams does not throw particularly hard, averaging about 90 km / h with his fastball, which he launches 70% of the time. But Counsell said the batters did not seem interested in the pitch, the same complaint that opponents face rookie Freddy Peralta this season.

"It's the mystery of these fastballs," said Counsell. "They are a little different for guys. They do something different from everyone's fastball. It has a good extension, it looks, and it is the feeling that it strikes a little.

After undergoing offensive somnambulism in the first eight rounds, the Brewers finally gave life to the ninth inning when Jesús Aguilar started a homer and Domingo Santana followed with another Felipe Vazquez throw.

Considering that Vazquez had only allowed two circuits throughout the season in 63 games, he was certain that two bat bursts were to be reported. But there is nothing like victories in the major leagues, and Vazquez eliminated the next three batters to close the Brewers.

So if the Brewers are going to hit Chicago, it will take something dramatic. The Cubs will play the next three days in Arizona against a Diamondbacks team that will collapse under the weight of a brutal finishing schedule, then return to Chicago for their last 10 games – three against the city of White Sox, followed by four against Pittsburgh. St. Louis at Wrigley Field.

The Pirates play hard against the Cubs, but they are not as tough as they play against the Brewers. They lost eight of their 15 defeats against Wrigley.

"It's frustrating," said Chacín, who, for the second consecutive appearance, suffered a defeat he did not deserve (three hits, two points in five innings). "We can not hit pirates.

"We have to find a way to beat the pirates. We have another series out there, so we have to see how we can beat them. "

The Brewers are 11-5 against the Reds this season – NL Central's only opponent against which they have a winning record – but you can not take anything for granted at this time of the year. The pirates certainly have not rolled and Cincy will not do it either.

"We have to control what we can control," said Aguilar. "All we can control right now are games and wins. We can not worry about what others are doing. We just have to worry about ourselves.