CINCINNATI — Twenty-two base runners. Eleven walks. More stress than a job interview. All three of the top relief pitchers unavailable.
How, exactly, it all worked out for the Milwaukee Brewers isn’t entirely clear.
But it did.
When looking back at the 2026 Brewers season, the night of June 24 against the Cincinnati Reds won’t stand out for its glamour, and yet that chaos is exactly what will make it one of the more character-building nights of the year for the Brewers when all is said and done.
Without Aaron Ashby, Abner Uribe and Trevor Megill, all unavailable after pitching the previous two nights (with Uribe also serving a one-game suspension), the Brewers knew it might be an uphill battle from the start. Then starter Shane Drohan saw his pitch count getting elevated early as he did not pitch particularly well. Neither did any of the four relievers who came after him, either.
And yet they won, 6-5. Somehow. That, in essence, is both the beauty and the horror of baseball – all depending on which side of the coin you landed.
“Our main guys were down tonight, which they deserved to be down,” Brewers ‘B’ Team reliever Joel Kuhnel said. “We used them the first two games and they got the win the first two nights, so they needed a day off to reset and get ready for the next series. There’s confidence that our guys can come in and pick up them.”
Shane Drohan doesn’t give a long start
Drohan didn’t have his best stuff or command, but he did have a rabbit tucked somewhere inside his navy ball cap.
Needing a lengthy start given the state of the bullpen – which was down to four relievers and Robert Gasser as the break-glass player – Drohan wasn’t quite able to give it because of his difficulty putting hitters away.
He ultimately went 4 ⅓ innings, allowing five hits and three walks but, most importantly, no runs.
“It starts with the fastball command,” Drohan said. “I think I need to throw more fastballs at the bottom of the zone so then they can get those chases on the breaking balls below the zone. That’s really where it starts and that’s what I need to get fixed.”
Drohan twice had to escape messy jams.
In the second, a single and double put runners on second and third with nobody out. He painted a front-hip sinker to Noelvi Marte for a key first out, then walked Tyler Stephenson. It wasn’t pretty, but Drohan got through the bases-loaded spot by inducing a pop up and freezing Blake Dunn with another sinker for out number three.
It looked like things might spiral all the way out of control on Drohan in the third when Elly De La Cruz opened with a single and Sal Stewart two batters later did the same on a 12-pitch at-bat.
On his 75th pitch of the game – with only seven outs recorded to that point – Drohan got Spencer Steer to ground into a double play.
“That’s just my personality,” Drohan said. “The bigger the moment, I feel like I’m always going to rise to the occasion and execute when we need to.”
The bridge relievers struggle
The shortstaffed Brewers wanted three innings out of Chad Patrick, but his control was so ineffective that Murphy moved on to Grant Anderson to begin the seventh after getting only five outs from his second reliever.
“Chad Patrick wasn’t very sharp early,” Murphy said.
The problem was Anderson was no better. He retired two of the first three Reds he faced, but then lost his ability to locate and allowed a double and two walks to load the bases and bring the tying run to the plate.
Craig Yoho was summoned and got a first pitch out when JJ Bleday laced a changeup to Jake Bauers at first base. It ended the threat with a four-run lead still intact, but also foreshadowed what would lead to trouble the next inning: Cincinnati was ready for his best pitch.
Edwin Arroyo let off the eighth against Yoho by sitting back just enough on a changeup and dumping it into right for a hit. De La Cruz followed and drew a nine-pitch walk by not expanding the zone because he was clearly sitting back for a change up.
“They know the deal,” Murphy said. “The report’s out there. Fastball command, question mark. Changeup, very slow, sit on it, now a swing and miss [pitch]. So he’s got to make some adjustments with it and I think he will. He’s a great kid.”
Yoho managed to retire the next two batters on grounders to short, but in doing so also began going away from the changeup. That would soon burn him.
He got ahead of Steer with the cutter and then, with catcher William Contreras feeling the Reds were still waiting on a change up, when back to a fastball. Steer, a fastball hitter, crushed it.
Suddenly, it was 6-5.
“I mean you can question any pitch calling anytime you want,” Murphy said. “The thing of it is, he doesn’t get any swing and miss on that changeup. So sometimes they’re looking for that more than you think and then it ends up sometimes you can beat them with the heater and surprise them. But, yeah, he didn’t execute tonight. He’s been good up until now. He didn’t execute tonight.”
Joel Kuhnel plays the role of closer (and hero)
Enter Kuhnel.
The former Red who spent parts of four seasons in Cincinnati and made 69 appearances with one save took the mound looking for his second save of the series.
It did not look like it was going to happen.
Jose Trevino singled past a diving David Hamilton. Bleday walked. At that point, Kuhnel admitted he was running on low after having faced two batters in the eighth.
“Just trying to leave it all out there and that’s all I can do,” Kuhnel said.
A failed sac bunt offered a reprieve, but not for long. Kuhnel sprayed four uncompetitive misses after getting ahead 0-2 on De La Cruz to load the bases.
It was the Reds’ 22nd base runner of the game to that point. Somehow, only five had scored. They were 3 for 16 with runners in scoring position at the time.
In short order, that dropped to 3 for 17.
Kuhnel put all he had into a 1-2 sinker to Dane Myers, clocking it at 96 mph. Myers turned it around at 104 mph, but on the ground and right to Cooper Pratt at shortstop. Pratt bobbled it ever so slightly making the exchange but second baseman Brice Turang uncorked a quick turn to complete the double play.
“Brice stays under control and keeps the timing,” Murphy said. “He’s got a knack for being around the bag. But I’m proud of Coop making that play.”
A sweaty, exhausted Kuhnel had just enough energy left in the tank to let out a yell that could be heard by the Ohio River.
He and the Brewers had just stranded 16 runners, tied for the most ever in a win in franchise history. It wasn’t pretty but it sure was something.
“That was the most excitement I’ve ever had with a game,” Kuhnel said.
This article originally appeared on Milwaukee Journal Sentinel: How the Brewers pulled off a Houdini act of a win in Cincinnati
Reporting by Curt Hogg, Milwaukee Journal Sentinel / Milwaukee Journal Sentinel
USA TODAY Network via Reuters Connect
By Curt Hogg, Milwaukee Journal Sentinel | USA TODAY Network
