Corbin Burnes struck out eight through eight scoreless innings to win a pitching duel with fellow right-hander Merrill Kelly as the Milwaukee Brewers cruised to a 7-1 victory over the Arizona Diamondbacks on Tuesday in Phoenix.
Burnes (1-1) surrendered just three hits and did not issue a walk. Kelly (0-2) had a no-hitter through six innings before Willy Adames led off the seventh with a home run to ignite a five-run rally.
Kelly walked the next two batters, Rowdy Tellez and Brian Anderson, and was then pulled from the game.
He was relieved by Miguel Castro, who allowed a single to Garrett Mitchell to load the bases before walking Victor Caratini to force home Tellez.
After a popout in foul territory by Brice Turang, Joey Wiemer grounded out to second base and brought home Anderson in the process to give Milwaukee a 3-0 lead.
Mike Brosseau then doubled, scoring Mitchell and Caratini, to increase the lead to 5-0.
Kyle Nelson relieved Castro and got Christian Yelich to ground out to end the rally.
Kelly finished with seven strikeouts and four walks while allowing three runs on just one hit in six-plus innings.
Milwaukee scored its last two runs on solo home runs in the eighth and ninth innings. Tellez went deep in the eighth off Jose Ruiz and Brosseau left the park in the ninth against Carlos Vargas.
Brosseau, the No. 9 batter in the lineup, went 2-for-4 with a run and three RBIs.
The only hit through the first six innings was a single by Arizona’s Gabriel Moreno to lead off the bottom of the third. The next batter, Alek Thomas, grounded into a double play.
The Diamondbacks had consecutive singles with two outs in the eighth inning off Burnes, but Thomas grounded out to end the inning.
Arizona finally broke through with two outs in the bottom of the ninth when Pavin Smith hit an RBI single.
–Field Level Media