Braves get trampled by Brewers in reverse result of previous game

After last night's debacle for Milwaukee, the Brewers promised that they'd get revenge by winning the next three games of the series. While that may have seemed laughable coming from one of the worst teams in baseball (especially after they were on the other end of an extremely lopsided defeat), it doesn't seem so laughable now after Milwaukee battered our Braves by the score of 11-0.

Things went badly for the Braves long before the game even started, as word came out that Alex Wood would be missing tonight's game due to a stomach virus. That meant that Eric Stults was called upon as tonight's starter, and things went downhill for Stults in the very first inning. Stults is known as a ground-ball pitcher, but all three of the outs he recorded in the first inning were of the flyball variety. That's not good, and evidence of this is the fact that Ryan Braun teed off on him in that inning for a 2-run shot, putting Milwaukee on the board and in the lead for good.

The fourth inning is where the Brewers did most of their damage, and this was just a disastrous inning for Stults. With two out and runners on second and third, the Braves chose to intentionally walk .149/.198/.213 hitter Martin Maldonado in order to get to the pitcher, Wily Peralta (who was hitting eighth tonight). Naturally, Stults walked Peralta to bring in Milwaukee's third run. Luis Sardinas added a single afterwards, and the Brewers were up by four and Eric Stults' night was over.

Trevor Cahill entered the game afterwards, and all he had to do was get one out so that the Braves could at least get out of the inning within striking distance. Four batters later, Cahill finally picked up that elusive out by striking out Aramis Ramirez. Unfortunately, this happened after the Brewers scored five runs to make it 9-0.

The Brewers added another run in the fifth inning (off of Cahill as well), and then threw another run atop the pile that they already had by scoring in the seventh inning. Once the smoke cleared, the Brewers had won an 11-0 shocker of a game.

Other than a few moments where the Braves made some nice plays (such as Christian Bethancourt turning a wild pitch into an inning-ending out at home), there wasn't really anything positive on display from Atlanta tonight. They only had three hits, and never looked close to scoring. Meanwhile, Eric Stults and Trevor Cahill combined to have one of the worst pitching performances of the season. It was an absolute mess of a night, and the Win Expectancy chart for this one is laughably sad. The Brewers took the phrase "We'll get 'em tomorrow" to heart, and here's hoping that the Braves do the same for Saturday afternoon's affair.

<iframe src="http://www.fangraphs.com/graphframe.aspx?config=0&static=1068188&type=livewins&num=0&h=450&w=450&date=2015-05-22&team=Braves&dh=0" frameborder="0" scrolling="no" height="450" width = "450" style="border:1px solid black;"></iframe><br /><span style="font-size:9pt;">Source: <a href="http://www.fangraphs.com/livewins.aspx?date=2015-05-22&team=Braves&dh=0&season=2015">FanGraphs</a></span>