Quinn Priester will look for his 11th consecutive winning decision as the visiting Milwaukee Brewers attempt to clinch their three-game series with the Toronto Blue Jays on Saturday afternoon.
The Brewers, who own the best record in the majors, defeated the Blue Jays 7-2 on Friday in the series opener. Toronto entered the night with the second-best record in the big leagues, but the Detroit Tigers passed the Blue Jays for top spot in the American League with a 5-3 victory over the Kansas City Royals.
Toronto’s lead in the American League East dwindled to three games over the New York Yankees and 3 1/2 games over the Boston Red Sox.
The Brewers lead the National League Central by 6 1/2 games over the Chicago Cubs.
Priester (11-2, 3.44 ERA) is 10-0 with a 3.01 ERA over his past 15 games (12 starts) — and the Brewers won all 15 games in that span.
The right-hander was held back from his scheduled start on Wednesday against the Arizona Diamondbacks because of a mild wrist ailment, but he is expected to be ready for Saturday.
In his lone career start against Toronto, for the Pittsburgh Pirates on June 2, 2024, Priester allowed four runs on eight hits in 4 2/3 innings during a 5-4 loss.
Priester will have reinforcement in the outfield as Jackson Chourio will be back in the lineup on Saturday. Chourio has been out since late July with a strained right hamstring, and he completed a rehabilitation assignment with Triple-A Nashville before rejoining the Brewers on Friday.
He said that he was feeling “perfect.”
Toronto will send Kevin Gausman (8-10, 3.87 ERA) to the mound in a bid to square the series on Saturday. The right-hander is 1-3 with a 4.06 ERA in five starts this month.
Gausman is 2-0 with a 1.57 ERA in six career games (four starts) against Milwaukee.
In the series opener, there was something close to a playoff atmosphere.
“What a great environment,” Brewers manager Pat Murphy said. “What great fans, what a great venue. Obviously, I feel better about it after the game.”
It started as a pitching duel between Milwaukee’s Freddy Peralta and Toronto’s Shane Bieber, and Peralta prevailed by allowing just one hit over six shutout innings.
Bieber, making his second start after returning from Tommy John surgery, pitched five scoreless innings before allowing the first two of Milwaukee’s five runs in the sixth.
“I thought he was really good,” Toronto manager John Schneider said. “He’ll probably say the opposite with some execution stuff. He wasn’t as sharp with the spin today, sure, but he was really, really sharp with the performance.”
The Blue Jays lost center fielder Daulton Varsho in the seventh inning when Brewers reliever Aaron Ashby hit him on the right hand with a pitch. X-rays were negative.
After going 2-for-24 with runners in scoring position in their previous two games, both losses to the Diamondbacks, Milwaukee went 4-for-10 in those situations on Friday.
“We barreled balls all night and just stayed after it,” Murphy said.
Milwaukee’s Brice Turang will try to continue his hit streak that reached 12 games on Friday when he went 2-for-4 with a walk. Through 26 games in August, he owns a .354/.413/.707 battling line with six doubles, a triple, nine home runs and 26 RBIs.
Toronto’s Bo Bichette was 2-for-4 on Friday to extend his hitting streak to 13 games. During the streak, he is batting .442 (23-for-52) with five doubles and eight RBIs.
–Field Level Media
