MILWAUKEE — Cal Quantrill gave up home runs to two of the first four batters he faced Saturday night at American Family Field, then retired the last 14 he saw. The Texas Rangers lost anyway, 5-3 to the Milwaukee Brewers, a fourth straight defeat and a 14th loss in their past 17 games away from Globe Life Field.
Texas fell to 66-70. The Rangers are 30-41 on the road, and they have lost seven road series in a row after starting the year 25-24.
“I’m sick of losing on the road,” Rangers manager Skip Schumaker said. “I know those guys are sick of losing on the road.”
Houston lost 6-2 to the New York Mets earlier Saturday, and Texas stayed two games back in the American League West.
“It’s still right in front of us, as crazy as it is,” Schumaker explained. “That’s why I think there’s frustration, especially on the road, when the game feels like it’s right there and we just can’t close it out for whatever reason.”
Cal Quantrill Retires 14 Straight After Two First-Inning Homers
Quantrill worked 6 innings, walked nobody and struck out a season-high 8. Jackson Chourio led off the first with his 20th home run of the season, and William Contreras followed later in the inning with a 409-foot drive to left on a 2-2 pitch. Luis Lara singled in a run in the second. Milwaukee did not put another runner on base against Quantrill after that, and the 4 runs he allowed over 6 innings all came in those first two innings.
Entering Saturday, Quantrill had a 0.72 ERA in five August appearances and a scoreless streak of 15 innings. He came in 6-4 with a 2.90 ERA in 27 appearances, 10 of them starts, with 60 strikeouts in 83 2/3 innings. Four of those appearances had come against Milwaukee over his career, three as a starter, with a 3.14 ERA and 13 strikeouts in 14 1/3 innings.
“I made two bad pitches, and sometimes the way baseball works is the two bad pitches get hit really hard,” Quantrill said. “I’d take back two or three pitches all day long.”
The two first-inning homers ended the scoreless streak.
“I thought he was fantastic,” Schumaker said. “He knew he wasn’t going to beat himself with walks or anything like that. They hit a couple home runs early. You can deal with the solo shots.”
Cody Freeman And Brandon Nimmo Account For Texas Rangers’ Runs
Shane Drohan struck out 6 over 5 innings for Milwaukee and gave up one run. The rookie left-hander, acquired from Boston in a six-player trade on Feb. 9, improved to 7-5. Cody Freeman took him deep leading off the fifth for the first home run of his season and Texas’ first run of the night.
Two innings earlier, the Rangers ran themselves out of an inning. Brandon Nimmo beat out a two-out infield single that would have loaded the bases, but Freeman tried to score from second and Brewers second baseman Brice Turang threw him out.
Texas trailed 5-1 into the eighth. Corey Seager drew a leadoff walk against Chad Patrick, and Nimmo followed with a 426-foot home run, his 14th of the season. The Rangers put the tying run on base later in the inning before it ended on two ground outs. Trevor Megill worked the ninth for his 25th save in 27 chances.
Texas managed two hits in Friday’s 6-1 loss. The Rangers are hitting .241 with a .316 on-base percentage.
“We had some guys on base with runners in scoring position early,” Schumaker said. “I never want to say we left him [Drohan] off the hook because he had good stuff. We just — he threw a lot of pitches early, and we could have capitalized.”
Texas has scored 544 runs this season. Milwaukee has scored 674.
“We get guys on base, we just can’t finish,” Schumaker said. “We’ve got to start finishing to get some more runs across the board.”
Milwaukee has won four in a row and holds the best record in the majors at 85-51. The Brewers are 47-24 at American Family Field.
“We’re just not catching a ton of breaks on the road,” Quantrill explained. “When we hit, we don’t seem to have our best pitching games, and when we haven’t pitched great, we just haven’t been able to score.”
The Rangers close the series Sunday at 1:10 p.m. CT on Rangers Sports Network. Kumar Rocker (5-10, 4.41 ERA) starts for Texas against Dustin May (6-8, 4.58 ERA).
