Joey Ortiz homered and Bryse Wilson tossed six innings of scoreless relief to lift the Milwaukee Brewers to a 3-1 victory over the visiting Texas Rangers on Tuesday night.
Ortiz led off the fifth with his seventh homer, putting the Brewers in front 2-1 with a 370-foot drive to left off starter Andrew Heaney.
Wilson (5-3), originally slated to start, came on in the third for opener Hoby Milner, making his first career start after 269 relief appearances. Wilson allowed three hits, striking out four and walking none. Elvis Peguero earned his second save.
Milwaukee loaded the bases in the sixth on three walks off Brock Burke, but Dane Dunning came in and got William Contreras on an inning-ending soft liner back to the mound.
The Brewers made it 3-1 in the seventh when Christian Yelich singled, advanced on a groundout and scored from second on Rhys Hoskins’ single to center that barely got past the glove of diving shortstop Corey Seager.
Heaney (2-9) allowed two runs on six hits in five innings, striking out four and walking two in a 90-pitch outing.
Texas scored one in the first off Milner, whose last start was in Triple-A in 2018. Seager doubled to left-center with one out and Josh Smith followed with an RBI single up the middle.
Milner followed with a 1-2-3 second inning before giving way to Wilson, who entered the game 0-2 with a 4.75 ERA as a starter and 4-1 with a 3.42 ERA out of the bullpen.
Milwaukee, which stranded runners on third in each of the first two innings, tied it 1-1 in the third when Contreras doubled and came home on Jackson Chourio’s two-out single.
–Field Level Media
