The No. 1 seed in the National League sure looked like it Saturday, with the Milwaukee Brewers crushing the Chicago Cubs 9-3 behind a red-hot first and second inning.
Although Cubs first baseman Michael Busch led off the game with a solo homer, it didn’t take long for the Brewers to build an insurmountable lead. They raced to a 6-1 score in the first inning, thanks to five RBI doubles and singles, and expanded that lead to 9-1 in the second.
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Ian Happ and Nico Hoerner added solo home runs of their own in the sixth and eighth innings, but it was far too little, too late for the Cubs to undo the damage of Milwaukee’s opening two frames. It didn’t help Chicago that Brewers starter Freddy Peralta had a stellar game in his own right, with nine strikeouts and just four hits allowed in 5 2/3 innings.
Milwaukee finished the game with a whopping 13 hits and eight RBI. Three of those hits and RBI came off the bat of left fielder Jackson Chourio, who was pulled from the game after the second inning due to hamstring tightness.
“It’s the same hamstring, and so we’re worried about it,” manager Pat Murphy told the TBS broadcast during the game.
Chourio’s forecast was a little rosier, telling reporters postgame through an interpreter, “Physically, I feel good.”
Game 2 for Chicago and Milwaukee begins at 9:08 p.m. ET Monday.
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